More than €31.1 billion was executed on Tradeweb’s European ETF marketplace in November with the net buying of emerging markets ETFs being the standout trend of the month.
Adriano Pace, Head of Equities (Europe) at Tradeweb.
Trading in equity ETFs accounted for 63% of total platform flow, four percentage points higher than the previous 12-month rolling average. Buying activity represented 55% of volume within the asset class.
North American equity ETFs were the most aggressively traded category, narrowly beating European equity ETFs. Investors were moderately bullish on North American equities, while European equities experienced modest net selling.
Emerging market equity ETFs, however, experienced vigorous buying, with ‘buys’ outstripping ‘sells’ by a very significant 50 percentage points.
Fixed income ETFs accounted for 32% of total platform flow, below the asset class’s 12-month rolling average of 36%, and saw net selling of 54% during the month. Within fixed income, though, emerging market debt ETFs had an impressive month, occupying the top spot in the most-traded list and further confirming the strong demand for EM exposure during the month.
Commodity ETFs represented 5% of total platform flow and experienced slight net buying.
Commenting, Adriano Pace, Head of Equities (Europe) at Tradeweb, said, “The platform had its third-best month on record, just as European ETF assets under management are about to hit the €1 trillion milestone. Despite range-bound market conditions, trading activity was steady throughout November and was primarily concentrated on equity instruments.”
Pace noted that over three-quarters (75.1%) of platform transactions during November were completed via Tradeweb’s Automated Intelligent Execution tool (AiEX).
The iShares JP Morgan EM Local Government Bond UCITS ETF maintained its position as the most actively traded ETF for the second consecutive month. The fund tracks the JP Morgan GBI-EM Global Diversified 10% Cap 1% Floor Index, providing access to local currency government bonds from emerging market countries.
In second place was the broad market EM equity ETF, UBS ETF MSCI Emerging Markets UCITS ETF. According to Traedweb, this ETF last featured in the top ten list in December 2018.
Source: Tradeweb.
US-listed ETFs
Tradeweb reported $11.1bn in notional trading volume on its US ETF platform in November. Equity ETFs accounted for 56% of total volume, fixed income ETFs for 36%, with the remainder comprised of commodity and specialty ETFs.
Fifty-five percent of trades on the US platform were executed via the Tradeweb AiEX tool.
Adam Gould, Head of US Equities at Tradeweb, said, “Equity ETFs were aggressively traded for the second consecutive month on our US ETF platform. The search for yield was also a key theme, as demonstrated by the top two ETFs by traded notional volume, both of which track high yield indices.”