SIX Swiss Exchange reported a 13.7% drop in Q3 ETF trading volumes compared to Q2, with the majority of the decrease accounted for by equity ETFs, after the benchmark Swiss Market Index SMI traded sideways for much of the quarter. The year-on-year decline was a relatively modest 3.6%.

ETF trading volume on SIX was dominated by funds issued by UBS and iShares.

Equity ETFs on the exchange recorded a decline in share turnover of approximately 30% from Q2 to Q3, while fixed income ETF share turnover remained broadly stable. Commodity ETFs were the stars of the quarter, however, notching up a trading turnover 60% greater in Q3 than in Q2.

The ETF with the highest trading volume on SIX during the quarter was the UBS ETF Gold (AUUSI), with a turnover of CHF 1.5 billion, nearly double that of the second place iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF (CSSPX). In third and fourth place were the db x-trackers Emerging Markets Liquid Eurobond UCITS ETF (XEMB) and the UBS ETF MSCI ACWI UCITS ETF EUR Hedged (ACEUKD).

ETFs with exposure to the emerging countries of Brazil and Russia posted the best performance in CHF during the quarter. The iShares MSCI Brazil UCITS ETF (IBZL) topped the performance rankings, up 24% in the three months to the end of September, closely followed by Brazilian equity ETFs from Amundi, HSBC, Lyxor and Deutsche Asset Management. The Lyxor RUSSIA Dow Jones Russia UCITS ETF (LYRUS) was the next best performer, returning 20% in the quarter, followed by Russian equity ETFs from iShares, ComStage and HSBC.

Source: SIX Swiss Exchange.

Breaking down ETF turnover by issuer, analysis from SIX showed that ETFs from UBS and iShares dominated the trading volume on the exchange during the quarter, with 37.2% and 35.0% of the market share respectively. The top two were distantly followed by Deutsche AM, Amundi and Lyxor, with market shares of 6.7%, 6.6% and 4.3% respectively.

Looking at trading volume by asset class, ETFs focused on developed market equities topped the list with 42.1% of the volume, although this was down by 29% from Q2. Next on the list were ETFs tracking fixed income (20.6%), commodities (14.1%) and emerging market equities (8.5%).

During the quarter, SIX introduced 28 new ETF listings. The exchange recorded over 222,000 ETF trades, with an average size of CHF 113,000.