The first quarter of 2012 marked the best ever start to a year for the Exchange Traded Products (ETP) industry, according to BlackRock’s latest ETP Landscape Report, as investors continued to return to the market and selected ETPs to invest in a range of asset classes.
The ETP industry gathered net new assets of USD67.3bn during Q1 2012, representing an increase of 50% on Q4 2011 when net new assets stood at USD44.8bn, and an increase of 57% on the USD42.8bn of inflows recorded in Q1 2011.
Investor interest in fixed income ETPs also hit new highs during the quarter. Fixed income products attracted inflows of USD19.5bn, eclipsing the previous quarterly record of $14.7bn set in Q4 2011, and accounted for 29% of all inflows into ETPs globally. Within the asset class, investors showed a clear preference for investment grade and high yield corporate bonds, with these two categories accounting for 85%, or USD16.5bn of total fixed income inflows.
