For instance, State Street Global Advisor saw $7.2 billion in outflows from its suite of SPDR ETFs in June alone. BlackRock experienced $5 billion in ETF outflows last month as well and saw new ETF business down 63% to $52.7 billion over the first six months compared to the same period last year. Vanguard also saw business fall 48% to just over $43 billion in the first half.
Wei Li, head of iShares Emea investment strategy at BlackRock, said investors have turned more risk-off and shifted over to safer plays in response to the trade tensions and the more normalized monetary policy outlook.
“Gold ETFs have attracted steady inflows until very recently even though the price hasn’t performed strongly this year and there has been a huge appetite for US government bond ETFs following increases in short-term rates,” Li told FT.
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