European exchange-traded fund assets have been pushed to an all time high of USD192.1bn at end of August 2009, driven by emerging market and fixed income ETFs, according to data from Ba
European exchange-traded fund assets have been pushed to an all time high of USD192.1bn at end of August 2009, driven by emerging market and fixed income ETFs, according to data from Barclays Global Investors.
The figure is 5.3 per cent above the previous all time high of USD182.5bn set in July 2009, and 20.2 per cent above the high of USD159.9bn set in July 2008.
The European ETF industry had 751 ETFs with 1,889 listings, assets of USD192.1bn from 33 providers on 19 exchanges at the end of August 2009.
YTD assets have risen by 34.7 per cent which is more than the 21.6 per cent rise in the MSCI Europe Index in US dollar terms.
Contrasting this to the latest data from Lipper FMI, net inflows to mutual funds (excluding ETFs) were USD60.2bn, while net sales of ETFs were USD15.2bn during the first six months of 2009.
Emerging market equity ETFs have seen the largest increase in assets growing by USD8.8bn YTD to reach USD16.3bn at the end of August 2009.
ETFs tracking European countries was the next most popular category in terms of absolute USD growth, rising by USD8.4bn to reach USD34.8bn, followed by fixed income ETFs growing by USD6.1bn to reach USD46.9bn at the end of August 2009.
Deborah Fuhr, global head of ETF research and implementation strategy at BGI, says: ‘The net inflows of USD15.2bn in the past six months shows demand for ETFs is still growing as clients view ETFs as useful tools to help them implement many types of exposures.’
