Total ETF assets declined by almost 4% in August thanks to abysmal performances from equity markets around the globe. But the industry kept its monthly winning streak alive, managing to generate net inflows of about $2 billion during one of the worst months performance wise since late 2008. Not surprisingly, fixed income ETFs saw a surge in interest; inflows to bond products during the month topped $4.7 billion according to the latest statistics from the National Stock Exchange. And while investors fled from international stock markets (to the tune of net outflows of about $5.6 billion), U.S. equity ETFs actually saw net inflows. One interesting figure was the size of net inflows into long leveraged U.S. equity funds; this corner of the market took in more than $3 billion in new cash.
The ETF industry has enjoyed three consecutive months of net inflows; May saw about $1 billion in net outflows. [click to continue…]
Despite a dismal month for most equity benchmarks, ETF assets climbed past the $1.1 trillion level in July thanks to another strong round of inflows into exchange-traded products. More than $13 billion flowed into ETPs last month, led by strong demand for U.S. equities and commodities. Domestic equity funds accounted for about $4.4 billion of [...]
Most investors probably never expected that it would never come to this. With only days remaining until the day the government coffers supposedly go dry, a deal to avoid a default remains elusive (one would suspect the August 2 date is at least 72 hours or so in advance of a hard deadline). The back [...]
ETF Securities, the Europe-based ETF issuer responsible for a series of ultra-popular physically-backed precious metal ETFs, recently made an SEC filing detailing plans for a series of physically-backed exchange-traded products targeting the industrial metal space. In total, the filing calls for seven funds with one targeting each of aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, tin, and zinc, [...]
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that exchange-traded commodity products were the darlings of the ETF world. Praised for democratizing an entire asset class (and one capable of delivering non-correlated returns to investors at that), commodity ETFs saw billions of dollars of cash inflows in 2009. Investors rushed to get their hands on everything [...]
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, [...]
ETF Securities, the European-based ETF issuer famous for its lineup of physically-backed precious metal ETFs, announced further expansion of its product offering with the launch of an ETF that holds physical gold bullion in Singapore, the ETFS Physical Asian Gold Shares Trust. The new fund will trade under the symbol AGOL and will charge investors [...]
Global X, one of the fastest-growing U.S. ETF issuers, announced today the latest addition to its product lineup. The company rolled out the Gold Explorers ETF (GLDX), the first pure play fund offering exposure to gold exploration companies. The new fund will offer exposure to this unique segment of the gold mining life cycle by [...]
ETF Securities, the European ETF giant that has now accumulated more than $2 billion in U.S. ETF assets, announced the latest addition to its product line on Friday. The ETFS Physical Precious Metal Basket Shares (GLTR) will be the first U.S.-based, physically backed precious metal basket ETP. GLTR (pronounced “glitter”) will hold gold, silver, platinum [...]
As the U.S. economy continues to struggle and more intervention from the Fed seems inevitable, the dollar has been battered in currency markets. The greenback has already lost close to 8% over the past few months against the world’s other major currencies, and while a Chinese rate hike earlier this week helped to temporarily stem [...]
One of the major stories of the past few months has been the impressive rally in gold prices, which have repeatedly touched new record highs in recent sessions. Fueled by concerns about the impact of further quantitative easing and weakness in the U.S. dollar, gold has climbed steadily higher even as equity markets have showed [...]
