Investors of all stripes, whether focused on stocks, bonds or commodities, poured more than $27 billion into U.S. ETFs in September, lifting assets by more than 10 percent to over $900 billion. The flow highlighed the ways investors are grappling with the sluggishness the world’s biggest economy finds itself mired in.

Equity creations of more than $24 billion made up the lion’s share of new assets last month, with the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) raking in $10.28 billion. SPY’s haul was more than half of U.S. equity creations and over 40 percent of all the inflows into stock ETFs, including emerging markets funds, which continued to do well, according to data compiled by IndexUniverse.com.

It isn’t unusual to see SPY dominate asset gathering, as it is the world’s biggest ETF, but its inflows also indicated the extent to which investors are favoring large-cap stocks at a time of uncertainly in the global economy. Many of the companies in the S&P 500 have a large percentage of their operations outside the U.S., offering diversification, and they also pay steady dividends, giving their stocks bondlike qualities.

Net fixed-income inflows meanwhile totaled about $2 billion, and those into commodities ETFs, particularly precious metals ETFs, were $1.01 billion.

VWO Vs. EEM

Apart from SPY, which topped the September creations list, it’s been impossible not to notice how much emerging markets have been on a tear this year, and September was no exception.

Both the Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: VWO) and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (NYSEArca: EEM) were once again on our “Top Gainers” table and, once again, VWO had the upper hand in the asset-gathering.

VWO was third on the list, adding $2.36 billion, while EEM collected $830.5 million in new assets. EEM remains the bigger fund, with $45.09 billion in assets, to VWO’s $36.20 billion, but, if the current trend continues, VWO looks likely to catch up and surpass EEM in total assets before long.

Sixth on the asset-gathering list was the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSEArca: VXX), a measure of how nervous investors are about the economic outlook. The ETN, which spikes in value along with market volatility, added $823.7 million last month, lifting assets to $2.39 billion.

Previous Page

1  |  2  |  3  |  4

| Full Article  |Next Page