“If you look at the history of ETFs for the first 11 years, it was all equity benchmarks. I think it’s the natural evolution of the market that most of the products start out being on equity benchmarks that people know and understand, and then they migrate to other asset classes as investors become more comfortable,” Fuhr said.
Furthermore, about 90% of the new $2.6 billion in inflows into emerging markets was via an ETF. Godfrey Obioma for Business Daily Online reports that Asia ex-Japan inflows saw the most growth in the region, from $310 million to $1.2 billion.
The renewed interest in Asia can be viewed as the opposite of the total global economic picture. In other regions of the globe, net inflows dragged in October, slowing to $13.5 billion, according to ETFGI data.
Tisha Guerrero contributed to this article.