The Asia-Pacific ETP market witnessed strong cash flows of USD2.7bn in the month of May – the highest monthly flows since the start of 2011 – according to data released by BlackRock.
Total monthly flows were primarily contributed by Equity ETPs with USD2.6bn of inflows. Among other asset classes, this was the fourth month in a row when Commodity ETPs have witnessed cash inflows while Fixed Income ETPs have had four consecutive months of cash outflows over the same period. We believe that cash flows in the Asia-Pacific region have been driven mostly by increased product adoption rather than by pure asset allocations.
This year, from January to May, Commodity ETPs have recorded monthly cash flows of -USD19m, USD56m, USD106m, USD100m and USD91m, respectively; whereas for the same respective months Fixed Income ETPs have recorded USD55m, -USD86m, -USD22m, -USD31m and -USD15m of flows. Within Equity products, Asia Pac Developed Country ETPs and Emerging Country ETPs recorded USD1.2bn and USD1.1bn of inflows respectively. In the Commodity category, Gold and Silver had positive flows of USD49m and USD44m, respectively. Year-to-date cash flows climbed to USD3.5bn with the May month boost.
Similar to the previous week, Asia-Pacific weekly turnover was above USD5bn ending the last week with a total of USD5.3bn. Major activities were in Hong Kong (USD1.4bn, 10.7% up), China (USD1.2bn, 8.2% up), Korea (USD1.1bn, 1.6% down), Japan (USD786m, 6.9% up) and Singapore (USD353m, 1.4% down) markets. Asia Pac Developed Country ETPs experienced the largest week-over-week turnover increase trading an additional USD149m or 13.2% up from the previous week.
For the past six weeks Asia-Pacific ETP assets are hovering around USD87bn and did not experience strong growth. Nevertheless, since the start of the year, frequent new product launches in the region have been adding to the total ETP assets which have grown by 3.6% or USD3bn year-to-date.
