Investors have pulled more than $7 billion from the two largest emerging market ETFs in June with the funds suffering year-to-date losses of about 12% to lag U.S. stocks and other developed markets.
Since the end of May, investors have redeemed $5 billion from iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSEArca: EEM) and $2.1 billion from Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets (NYSEArca: VWO), according to IndexUniverse data.
Riskier emerging market ETFs outperformed the S&P 500 in 2009 and 2010 when markets recovered after the credit crisis.
However, the funds are way behind the U.S. blue-chip index so far this year. SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) is up about 14%.
Overall, U.S.-listed ETFs have lost about $17 billion of assets under management over the past 30 days, Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, said in a note Friday. “The biggest bullet thus far has been at the top of the risk pyramid, with emerging markets funds losing $10.4 billion,” he wrote.
“Emerging markets equity ETFs have redeemed a whopping $7.4 billion (6% of assets) in the past month,” TrimTabs Asset Management said in a report Friday. “The heavy outflows are not surprising. Flows generally follow performance, and the average emerging markets equity fund plunged 11.9% in price in the past month.”