U.S. equity funds lost $11.2 billion in outflows, with sector funds shrinking by $4.3 billion and large-caps seeing $2.3 billion in redemptions.
The riskier developing markets also saw their fair share of redemptions, with broad emerging market funds losing $2.7 billion in outflows. However, investors grew more picky with their emerging economy exposure, funneling $2.2 billion into single-country ETFs.
Meanwhile, commodity funds saw $4.3 billion in inflows over January, one of their best months since February 2015. Short oil ETF bets brought in $2.3 billion and safe-haven gold funds collected $1.9 billion.
Despite the relatively unchanged asset flows to U.S.-listed ETFs, the global ETF industry still expanded by $13.9 billion in January, with a little over $2.8 trillion in total assets under management.
Max Chen contributed to this article.