Amid lingering tensions in Eastern Europe and more polls revealing Brazil’s upcoming presidential election is likely to be a nail-biter, investors departed emerging markets ETFs last week for safer, less volatile pastures.
Investors pulled $1.09 billion from emerging markets equity funds last week with the bulk of those outflows coming courtesy of $1.06 billion worth of ETF redemptions, reports Dimitra DeFotis for Barron’s.
The bulk of the $1.06 billion pulled from emerging markets ETFs last week came by way of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM), which saw nearly $828 million leave. Investors yanked another $16.4 million from the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: VWO), the largest emerging markets ETF by assets.
One week does not always make a trend when it comes to ETF flows, but more importantly, last week’s emerging markets outflows have a much different feeling from the mass exodus seen from ETFs tracking emerging markets equities in the first quarter. [Emerging Markets ETFs Lose Image Battle]
Citing UBS, Barron’s reports last week’s emerging markets outflows were merely the first in the past eight weeks and just the fourth in the 25 weeks going back to March. Softening some of the blow inflicted by EEM’s outflows was the nearly $284 million in new money investors put to work in the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: IEMG).
Although professional trading desks continue to display a preference for EEM due to the fact that is one of the most heavily traded securities in the U.S., the lower-cost IEMG continues to gain fans among both professional and retail investors. In fact, $2.23 billion of inflows to IEMG this underscore the ETF’s growing number of institutional fans. That is $2.23 billion in added assets while VWO has shed almost $653 million. [Don’t Copy All Hedge Fund Holdings]
Another factoid could assuage investors feeling skittish about last week’s modest emerging markets departures: Inflows to single-country ETFs. Although polls show President Dilma Rousseff and challenger Marina Silva likely heading toward an Oct. 26 run-off, the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWZ) added over $37 million in new assets last week. That continues a recent pattern of inflows to Brazilian equity funds despite faltering economic growth in Latin America’s largest economy. [Rushing to Brazil ETFs]
Compelling valuations and the market’s reputation for being a less volatile alternative to other developing markets prompted investors to add almost $48 million to the iShares MSCI South Korea Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWY) last week.
iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post. Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of EEM and IEMG.