IEFA (iShares Core MSCI EAFE, Expense Ratio 0.14%) continues to make its mark since its late 2012 inception in terms of attracting new investor interest and asset inflows.
Lately the fund has taken in new investors so to speak, in terms of >$200 million in new assets via creation flows, bringing the fund’s asset base up to $1.78 billion and with the fund now trading about 246,000 shares daily on average.
Year to date the fund has pulled in more than $480 million, and this is likely a direct function of what appears to be institutional demand for EAFE tracking ETFs in the first quarter of 2014, as the longer tenured EFA (iShares MSCI EAFE, Expense Ratio 0.34%) which debuted back in 2001 has pulled in an impressive $1.1 billion year to date in new assets.
EFA remains the giant in the ETF space, now with a hefty $54 billion in assets under management, making it more the twice the size of the next closest competitor, VEA (Vanguard Europe Pacific, Expense Ratio
0.12%) which has about $20 billion in AUM.
IEFA has impressively climbed the ladder in the “Developed Markets” space in a relatively short amount of time to now stand as the eighth largest fund in the category in terms of assets under management.
Other potentially more “specialized” notables that have steadily attracted a growing level of investor interest and ultimately new assets include SCZ (iShares MSCI EAFE Small Cap, Expense Ratio 0.40%, $3.8 billion in AUM), IDV (iShares DJ EPAC Select Dividend, Expense Ratio 0.50%, $3.4 billion in AUM), EFV (iShares MSCI EAFE Value, Expense Ratio 0.40%, $2.4 billion in AUM), SCHF (Schwab International Equity, Expense Ratio
0.09%, $2.09 billion in AUM), EFG (iShares MSCI EAFE Growth, Expense Ratio 0.40%, $1.79 billion in AUM), and EFAV (iShares MSCI EAFE Minimum Volatility, Expense Ratio 0.20%, $1.05 billion in AUM).
One may note here that these funds are not exactly household names among all, and some are relatively new to the marketplace, having debuted within the past 3-5 years for example, but have all demonstrated the ability to attract sizable, and what appear to be “sticky,” assets.
iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF
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