In the middle of last week as the S&P 500 Index dipped below its 50 day moving average for the first time since last December, we noted heavy selling activity in a fund that is structured as a subset of the S&P 500 Index.
PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility Portfolio (NYSEArca: SPLV) lost about $193 million in assets as we saw approximately 5 million shares redeemed from the fund.
It appears that a large institutional holder liquidated their holding in the fund last week in a rather wholesale manner. Launching less than a year ago in May of 2011, SPLV has been tremendously successful in the marketplace, having reeled in nearly $1.5 billion in assets in a short amount of time.
The ETF follows the S&P 500 Low Volatility Index and owns one hundred equities that are members of the S&P 500 Index that have demonstrated the lowest realized volatility in the past 12 month period.