Investor sentiment towards higher risk and higher yielding asset classes improved during October 2011, following upbeat news on potential solutions to Europe’s debt crisis and solid Q3 2011 earnings for United States corporations.
Investors ploughed USD21.3 billion into equity ETPs during the month, with funds and products offering exposure to North American equities gathering new assets most strongly, according to BlackRock’s ETF landscape report.
Fixed income continued to attract new money of USD4.6bn in October 2011, the only major asset class with a perfect record of inflows for every month during 2011.
ETP AUM of USD1,578bn increased by USD150bn in October 2011 as NNA of USD26.5bn were combined with USD123bn of positive market and exchange rate moves. This represents a one month return of 8.6% compared to the MSCI All Countries World Index one month return of 10.6%.
Global assets under management in the ETP industry reached USD1.578 trillion as at the end of October 2011. The total number of ETPs increased slightly to 4,152 from 4,102 at the end of September 2011.