“What jumps out about this year’s fund flows activity for equity ETFs is that nondomestic equity ETFs have dominated equity ETFs. Nondomestic equity ETFs have grown their coffers by almost $64 billion so far for 2015, while domestic equity ETFs have seen over $8 billion leave. If this trend holds through year-end, 2015 will be the first year since 2010 that nondomestic equity funds have had more net inflows than domestic ones. Nondomestic barely nudged out domestic for most net inflows for 2010 (+$34.0 billion versus +$33.7 billion), while the roughly $70-billion spread for this year would be by far the highest annual difference between the two groups for the 20 years Lipper has been tracking the data,” according to Lipper data.
As Lipper notes, both the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) and the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: IVV) have lost assets this year, a trend that perhaps underscores investors’ preference for developed market ex-U.S. equity funds in 2015.
Deutsche X-trackers MSCI EAFE Hedged Equity ETF
Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of SPY.