Investors continue to pile into exchange traded fund investments on the U.S. exchanges as an efficient way to gain access to various segments of the market. Overseas, the story is pretty much the same, with ETF products experiencing robust asset growth.
For instance, the Italian ETF market, which recently marked its 10th anniversary, saw assets grow 50% year-over-year in the last decade, accumulating €17.8 billion, or $$23 billion, as of the end of August, reports Chris Flood for Financial Times.
There are 798 ETF products, offered by 11 providers, listed on Italy’s exchange.
In comparison, there were 1,474 U.S.-listed ETFs with $1.23 trillion in assets as of the end of August. Globally, exchange traded products, which includes ETFs and exchange traded notes, hit a record $1.76 trillion in assets over August. [ETF Assets Hit Record]
“The 10th anniversary of ETF trading in Italy is an important date for the Borsa Italiana to mark and we anticipate further strong growth in interest in ETFs from both institutional and retail investors in future,” Pietro Poletto, head of ETF and fixed income markets at the London Stock Exchange, owner of the Borsa Italiana, said in the Financial Times article.
Interest in Italy-listed ETFs has increased, even in face of the equity turnover on the Borsa Italiana since the beginning of the 2007 financial crisis.