Many of the first-quarter’s trends were echoed when we drilled down to March, the final month of the quarter. March ETP flows reached $23.5 billion, which was more than double the assets gathered in February. Developed market equity ETPs attracted $23.2 billion, a strong performance that almost matched the $23.6 billion witnessed in January. Of this total, 71% came from funds with US exposure and US large-cap led with flows of $8.3 billion.
But as the Cyprus bailout situation dominated headlines for much of the month, European equity exposures experienced outflows of $2.3 billion. And gold ETPs experienced a third consecutive month of outflows as investors brought money off the sidelines and shifted away from perceived safe haven assets.
With these record flows, we’re seeing investors use ETPs to quickly and nimbly reposition their portfolios to act on emerging market opportunities, even in the midst of continued macro uncertainty.
Dodd Kittsley, CFA, is the Head of Global ETP Market Trends Research for BlackRock.