U.S.-listed exchange traded funds and notes posted net outflows of $238 million in November as major equity ETFs saw the biggest redemptions. It was the first time since April that ETFs and ETNs have seen outflows, although they’ve pulled in over $100 billion so far this year.
Buying in ETFs that track safe havens helped offset some of the losses. SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) gathered over $3 billion last month to lead all exchange traded products, according to data from the National Stock Exchange.
ETFs and ETNs held around $1.06 trillion in assets at the end of November, which was still a 12% increase year-over-year.
For the month, long fixed-income ETPs added on $5 billion in assets, whereas long U.S. equities lost $7 billion.
For instance, the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NYSEArca: BND) brought in $1 billion in inflows, iShares iBoxx $ Invest Grade Corp Bond (NYSEArca: LQD) tacked on $639 million and iShares Barclays TIPS Bond (NYSEArca: TIP) added $605 million.
In contrast, the largest outflows came out of the broad index ETFs for stocks. SPDR S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SPY) lost $4.6 billion, iShares Russell 2000 Index (NYSEArca: IWM) drained $3.5 billion, iShares S&P 500 Index (NYSEArca: IVV) bled $1.5 billion, Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF) lost $1 billion and SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEArca: DIA) contracted by $833 million. These figures are outflows, not asset levels.
Total ETP trading volume was over $1.7 trillion during November, which accounted for 34% of overall U.S. equity trading volumes in the market. U.S. equity ETPs showed the highest notional trading volume, with $1.108 trillion, followed by volumes in global and international equity ETPs, with $191.8 billion.