Global assets in exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products hit a record high at the end of last month, according to data from ETFGI’s April 2016 global ETF and ETP industry insights report.
Global ETF assets hit record high
Assets reached $3.137tn at the end of April this year. Records were also hit across different regions; in United States ETFs/ETPs listed saw assets reach $2.217tn, in Canada $77.42bn, in Europe $533.34bn, in Japan $145.93bn, and in Asia Pacific ex-Japan $125.21bn.
April marked the 27th consecutive month of inflows into global ETFs/ETPs. Last month saw fixed income ETFs/ETPs gather the largest net inflows with $7.73bn, followed by equity ETFs/ETPs with $2.39bn, while commodity ETFs/ETPs experienced net outflows with $136m.
The last few months have seen strong flows for the ETF market in general with record assets already set in regions such as in Japan and Asia-Pac ex-Japan. Globally, this year to the end of April saw inflows of $79.402bn, which included a record level of net new assets gathered by fixed income ETFs/ETPs with $48.66bn, commodity ETFs/ETPs ($14.425bn), leveraged ETFs/ETPs at $4.67bn and inverse ETFs/ETPs with $2.39bn.
ETFGI’s data shows that at the end of April 2016, the Global ETF/ETP industry had 6,297 ETFs/ETPs, with 12,126 listings, assets of $3.137tn, from 283 providers listed on 65 exchanges in 51 countries.
Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI, said in a statement: “Following a strong market performance in March the S+P 500 index was up just 0.39% in April. Developed markets ex-US were up 3.20%, while emerging markets ended up 1.05%. The S+P GSCI commodity index was up 10.14% in April. There is still a significant amount of uncertainty in the markets due to the upcoming Brexit vote, the US election, the efficacy and future of QE programs around the world.”
In April iShares gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows in April with $6.01bn, followed by Vanguard with $5.98bn and ProShares with $1.18bn in net inflows.