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 May 2016 global ETF and ETP industry insights report.
Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI.
Assets invested in ETFs and ETPs reached $3.143tn at the end of last month, up 0.2% on the previous record set in April this year.
Driving the uptick was Japan and the US, which both saw ETF/ETP assets hit record highs with $148bn and $2.229tn, respectively.
May marked the 28th month of consecutive inflows, capturing $10.6bn. This was made up of $7.47bn flowing into fixed income and $5.47bn into commodity ETFs/ETPs, however equity ETFs/ETPs had outflows of $4.53bn.
This year-to-date the industry has gathered net inflows of $91.26bn, let by fixed income ETFs/ETPs with $56.83bn, followed by commodity ETFs/ETPs at $19.90bn, and equity ETFs/ETPs with $3.40bn.
Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI, said in a statement: “The S&P 500 index was up just 1.8% in May. Developed markets ex-US declined 0.9% and emerging markets declined 3.2.%. There is still a significant amount of uncertainty in the markets due to the upcoming Brexit vote and the expectation that the Fed will raise rates sooner than expected.”
Vanguard gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows in May with $8.46bn, followed by Schwab ETFs with $1.32bn and Van Eck with $1.11bn net inflows.
One of Vanguard’s biggest ETFs is the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO), which has a total expense ratio of 0.15% and assets under management of $36.2 billion.
Source: Graph from ETFGI
At the end of May 2016, the Global ETF/ETP industry had 6,374 ETFs/ETPs, with 12,200 listings, from 280 providers listed on 65 exchanges in 53 countries.