The global ETF market rebounded in April, with EUR31.6 billion of inflows with bond-focused funds proving the biggest, attracting EUR16.5 billion and equity ETFs pulling in EUR11.3 billion, according to data released by Amundi.
The European market continued its slowdown, ending the month with less than EUR700 million of inflows
Since the start of the year, the global ETF market has benefitted from EUR138 billion of investment flows. Equity ETFs accounted for the majority: EUR92 billion, compared with EUR38 billion for fixed income ETFs. In Europe, equities also represent most of the ETF inflows: EUR22 billion collected in the first four months of the year, of which EUR16 billion went into equities and EUR3.8 billion into bonds. At the global level, inflows amounted to EUR31.6 billion in April, of which almost EUR680 million were in Europe. On the European market, equity ETFs experienced withdrawals (-EUR1 billion), while fixed income ETFs reached EUR991 million of inflows and commodity ETFs gained EUR709 million.
Equity outflows in April mainly affected European stocks (-EUR2 billion for the Eurozone and -EUR630 million for Europe). By contrast, European investors continued to strengthen their exposure to North America (+EUR1.5 billion), seen as less risky by investors, as well as emerging markets (+EUR789 million). Among sectorial and thematic strategies, SRI strategies attracted the highest number of subscriptions (+EUR113 million). Within Smart Beta approaches, Small Cap strategies kept standing out (+EUR95 million).
In the bond universe, the environment has remained unfavourable for corporate bonds (-EUR115 million in April and -EUR2.6 billion since the start of the year in Europe). European investors focused on government bonds (+EUR852 million in April and +EUR4.6 billion since the start of the year), with a more marked interest in three segments: bonds of peripheral Eurozone countries (+EUR255 million), US short-term bonds (+EUR208 million) and Eurozone bonds indexed to inflation (+EUR175 million). Conversely, investors pulled out of emerging market government bonds (-3EUR09 million).
