“Year-to-date inflows of $85.3 billion through May 2012 are running 18% ahead of 2011’s comparable total of $72.4 billion. Fixed income flows continue to break historical records scaling to a new high of $36.5 billion for the January-May period, and 148% higher,” BlackRock said.
Bond ETPs have attracted net inflows for 17 straight months.
Within the fixed-income category, global investment-grade corporate bond ETPs brought in net flows of $1.7 billion last month, bringing YTD inflows to $12.2 billion. Also, investors reduced their exposure to high-yield bond ETPs, taking out $1.3 billion, the first monthly outflows since November 2011, according to the report. [Sell-Off Pushes Junk Bond ETFs to Discounts]
Meanwhile, commodity funds in May saw outflows for a second month and gold ETPs shed $1.5 billion.