The ETF industry finished 2011 with assets of about $1.06 trillion according to data recently released by the ETF Industry Association. Total assets grew by about 5% over the previous year, when the industry stood at $1.01 trillion. Net cash inflows for the year totaled about $117.6 billion, a slight decrease from 2010 when the industry took in $118.7 billion. In 2009, total ETF inflows tallied about $119.4 billion, meaning that creations have been remarkably consistent over the last three years. December was one of the best months of the year from a cash inflows perspective; approximately $16.2 billion, or about 14% of the annual total, came in during the final month of the year.
U.S. equity ETFs accounted for about $41.3 billion in inflows, or approximately 35% of the industry total. But the real growth came in the fixed income arena; bond ETF assets grew from about $129 billion last year to nearly $180 billion at the end of 2011. That means bond ETF assets grew by about 38% last year, far outpacing the overall industry growth and dwarfing the 7% growth in domestic equity ETF assets. Bond ETFs saw net inflows last year of about $45 billion, representing about 38% of the industry’s total [for more ETF insights, sign up for the free ETFdb newsletter]. [click to continue…]
As the calendars prepare to flip forward, it appears as if 2011 will go down as a record-breaking year for the ETF industry on the product development front. More than 300 new ETPs began trading this year, shattering the previous record set in 2010. But despite the record size of the ETF lineup, it appears [...]
For many investors, 2011 was an up-and-down year; risky assets came racing out of the gates, but a string of negative developments erased all of the early gains during a chaotic summer. Heading in to 2012, the outlook is mixed; there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future, as well as some [...]
The curtain is about to drop on 2011, a year that will go down as a record-breaking period for the rapidly-expanding ETF industry. More than 300 exchange-traded products began trading this year, with dozens of issuers rolling out new products. While some of the new additions bear a striking resemblance to more established products on [...]
Heading into 2011, many observers of the ETF industry were warning that this year could see a wave of fund closures, as ETFs that were failing to generate positive cash flow for the institutions behind them could be shuttered. That wave of contraction has yet to really play out, as only a handful of ETFs [...]
This past year has been a strong one for the ETF industry. With a record number of launches, already over 300 on the year, it is clear that the exchange traded world is still in full swing. But despite all of the innovation that the year has seen, investors are still partial to their big [...]
Stock markets endured another choppy trading week as hope and anxiety over the Euro zone debt drama sparked rallies one day and sell-offs the next. The much anticipated summit in Brussels left investors with a plateful of good news to digest on Friday as European leaders agreed to closer fiscal ties, although the United Kingdom [...]
Stocks have been drifting sideways all week as anxiety surrounding the upcoming European summit has proven to be an unavoidable cloud of uncertainty. Back and forth negotiations between European leaders have paved the way for choppy trading on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, although as a whole, volatility has been relatively low this week [...]
Domestic equity indexes snapped out of their loosing streak last week as investor confidence in the markets improved after a robust start to the holiday shopping season. The bulls charged through Wall Street on Wednesday after a global central bank initiative to lower the cost of dollar funding through swap arrangements sent a wave of [...]
Investors can’t seem to catch a break from volatile trading on Wall Street as financial woes in Europe and debt ceiling drama at home are putting significant pressure on equity markets across the globe. Politicians in Washington D.C. have been struggling to compromise on a viable plan for modifying the debt-ceiling as well as outlining [...]
The latest ETF industry data from the National Stock Exchange is out, and after a small step back in May, exchange-traded products resumed their upward trajectory in June. Total ETP inflows totaled more than $8 billion last month, after May saw about $800 million in outflows–attributable in large part to big outflows from the S&P [...]