Investors Moved Back to Stock ETFs in July
August 2nd 2012 at 3:40pm by Tom Lydon
In a sharp turn from the previous months, investors dove into the equities market and stock exchange traded funds over July but still maintained some interest in fixed-income assets.
As of the end of July, U.S.-listed ETF and exchange traded note assets totaled $1.21 trillion, or a 3% gain month-over-month and 9% higher than the same month last year, according to the ETF Industry Association.
For the month, long U.S. equity exchange traded products attracted $13.7 billion in assets, global & international focused equity ETPs brought in $2.8 billion and fixed-income funds added $1.1 billion. Long commodity ETPs, though, lost $1.2 billion in assets.
Year-to-date, ETPs have garnered $93.0 billion in assets, with U.S. equity funds gathering $37.8 billion, global/international equity products adding $14.7 billion, real estate increasing by $5.7 billion, fixed-income ETPs acquiring $34.6 billion and commodities attracting $1.7 billion.
Among the big three, State Street Global Advisors saw $4.3 in inflows, followed by Vanguard with $4.3 billion and BlackRock‘s iShares with $3.8 billion. Vanguard has been cutting a larger piece of the market pie, gathering $33.8 billion in year-to-date inflows, compared to $20.0 billion for iShares and $14.6 billion for SSgA. [Vanguard Extends ETF Price War to TIPS]
ETFs with the highest cash inflows over the month include the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SPY) with $2.9 billion, iShares Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM) with $1.6 billion and Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSEArca: VWO) with $1.5 billion.
On the flip side, funds with the largest outflows include iShares Barclays 1-3 Year Treasuries (NYSEArca: SHY) with -$1.6 billion, SPDR Gold (NYSEArca: GLD) with -$1.4 billion and the iShares Barclays 7-10 Year Treasuries (NYSEArca: IEF) with -$523 million.
At the end of July, there were 1,486 U.S.-listed fund products, or 15% more than the 1,295 products available at the same time last year.
For more ETF asset flows, visit our ETF performance reports category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.
The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.
