Assets invested in Smart Beta equity exchange traded funds (ETFs) and exchange traded products (ETPs) listed globally reached a new record high US$559.78 billion at the end of February surpassing the prior record of US$534 billion at the end of January 2017.
That’s according to data from research firm ETFGI’s January 2017 global smart beta equity ETF and ETP industry insights report.
Record levels of assets were reached at the end of February for equity smart beta ETFs/ETPs listed globally with US$559.78 billion, in the United States with US$499.03 billion, in Europe with US$39.03 billion, in Canada with US$13.38 billionnand in Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) with US$5.20 billion.
In February 2017, smart beta equity ETFs/ETPs gathered net inflows of US$8.82 billion a record level of flows for February, while year to date there were net inflows of US$19.54 Bn. Year to date through end of February 2017, smart beta equity ETF/ETP assets have increased by 32.8% from US$422 billion to US$560 billion, with a 5-year CAGR of 30.6%.
At the end of February 2017, there were 1,212 smart beta equity ETFs/ETPs, with 2,059 listings, assets of US$560 billion, from 151 providers listed on 38 exchanges in 32 countries.
Deborah Fuhr, managing partner and co-founder of ETFGI, said the U.S. equity market performed strongly in February with the S&P 500 up 3.97% and the DJIA was up 5.17%.
“International equity markets continued to perform well in February with the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. BMI up 1.42% while the S&P Emerging BMI was up 3.46%,” Fuhr said. “There are significant upcoming political and economic events that investors will be watching in Europe in the next two months: the first round of the French election, a Dutch general election, the beginning of the U.K.’s ‘Brexit’ negotiations and, officials from the EU and the IMF are once again locked in negotiations over the Greek bailout.”
iShares gathered the largest ‘smart beta’ ETF/ETP net inflows in February with US$2.45 billion, followed by Vanguard with US$2.25 billion and Charles Schwab Investment Management with US$788 million net inflows.
Products tracking S&P Dow Jones ‘smart beta’ indices gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows in February with US$2.27 billion, followed by CRSP with US$1.97 Bn and NYSE with US$859 million net inflows.