Investors that have $124 billion of exchange traded fund assets custodied at Charles Schwab favored fixed-income ETFs in the second quarter as they preferred safety over riskier assets like stocks.
U.S. fixed-income ETFs saw the largest inflows among Schwab’s categories as they represented about 40% of total ETF flows in the second quarter.
Half of fixed-income flows in the past 12 months were gathered in the second quarter, according to a report from Schwab on ETF assets custodied at the financial-services firm, which also manages its own ETFs.
Within the fixed-income category, investors favored government bond ETFs, which accounted for 31% of segment’s flows, according to the report.
Recent ETF flows suggest investors are moving to safe havens like bonds and gold as they worry about patches of weak economic data, the European debt crisis and the U.S. debt ceiling. [Investors Buy Gold ETFs]