September was a brutal month for equity markets around the globe, as anxiety over Europe and intensifying concerns about the growth prospects for many emerging markets hammered asset prices. The freefall in stock markets hit the bottom line of the ETF industry as well; despite another month of strong inflows, industry assets fell below the $1 trillion mark for the first time in several months. According to recent data from the National Stock Exchange, ETP assets finished the third quarter at about $973 billion, a decline of about 9% over the previous month. That slide came despite aggregate inflows into exchange-traded products of about $4.6 billion.Year-to-date inflows into ETFs totaled almost $79 billion through the first nine months, slightly ahead of the 2010 pace. [click to continue…]
Rydex, the issuer behind the ultra-popular S&P Equal Weight ETF (RSP), announced this week the introduction of two new ETFs that offer equal-weighted exposure to the S&P MidCap 400 Index and S&P SmallCap 600 Index. The new ETFs include:
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 [...]
U.S.-listed ETP assets grew to $1.078 trillion at the end of March according to the latest data from the National Stock Exchange, putting the cap on another solid quarter of growth for the industry. Cash inflows in March totaled $11.2 billion, a material increase from $7.4 billion the month before. That figure could have been [...]
As the ETF world continues to grow, issuers have spread out into a variety of market segments in order to obtain the coveted first-mover advantage and gain large asset bases. Yet with the rapid proliferation of the industry, many are beginning to circle back to some of the most popular market segments such as bonds, [...]
After a small step backwards in August, the U.S. ETF industry got back on track in September as an unexpected equity market rally and impressive cash inflows combined to deliver an impressive single month jump in assets. ETF assets finished the third quarter at nearly $901 billion according to the National Stock Exchange, an increase [...]
As the ETF industry has expanded at a breakneck pace in recent years, keeping track of all the products out there has become no easy task. There are now well more than 1,000 exchange-traded products included in the ETF Screener, and many of those have hit the market in the last two to three years.
The impressive rise of the ETF industry in recent years is often held out as evidence of an ongoing shift in investor preferences away from costly active management and towards low cost indexing. Investors frustrated with the inability of pricey mutual fund managers to consistently beat their benchmark have abandoned stock picking in favor of [...]
The rise of the ETF industry has changed a lot about the business of investing. It has altered the way investors look at expenses, making it difficult to justify handing over 200 basis points (or more) each year to an active manager who can’t regularly beat a benchmark. It has also expanded the universe of [...]
The final numbers for the ETF industry are in for 2009, and the results are truly impressive. Total ETF assets grew nearly 50% on the year, aided by a strong recovery in financial markets but also by strong cash inflows across the board. ETFs have clearly been established as much more than a passing fad, [...]
In the beginning of the ETF industry, there was SPY. From there, the initial wave of expansion included primarily “plain vanilla” equity funds offering exposure to widely-followed benchmarks, such as the Dow, Nasdaq, and even sector-specific indexes. But innovation and product development in the ETF world didn’t stop there. The last five years have seen [...]
