Investors plowed over $13 billion into ETFs last month in a broad move into most asset classes. Gold funds in particular shined amid a slowing economy and a rancorous debate in Washington, D.C. over the U.S. debt ceiling. Assets rose just under 1 percent to $1.108 trillion, as inflows offset sliding stock prices.

Money flowed into equities, fixed income and commodities, in both the U.S. and internationally, with only leverage, inverse and alternative ETF categories recording outflows, according to data compiled by IndexUniverse. Including the more than $58 billion that flowed into ETFs through June, year-to-date flows amounted to about $71 billion.

Two of the world’s biggest gold bullion ETFs together hauled in almost $3.5 billion in new money, a reflection of how much investors are turning to precious metals amid debt-related uncertainties in the U.S. and the eurozone. All the interest in the yellow metal pushed Comex gold futures to a record of $1,637.50 a troy ounce Friday. It pulled back Monday to $1,619 amid signs of a debt-ceiling deal.

The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) raked in $2.85 billion in new money last month, lifting its assets to $66.13 billion, while the iShares Gold Trust (NYSEArca: IAU) collected $631.6 million, with its assets now totaling more than $8.2 billion. IndexUniverse Director of Research Dave Nadig and Exchange Traded Fund Report Managing Editor Cory Banks talked about the ins and outs of gold in a podcast this week.

GLD was last month’s second most popular ETF, behind only the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY), the world’s-biggest exchange-traded fund. SPY, which is often used to equitize assets when investors aren’t sure what to do with capital, hauled in $3.27 billion in July. Its inflows were enough to offset market declines, lifting total money in the fund to $93.33 billion from about $92 billion at the end of June.

The flows into both SPY and GLD were enough to make their sponsor, State Street Global Advisors, the top firm in terms of asset gathering last month. SSgA hauled in $5.80 billion, while Invesco PowerShares, the company behind the PowerShares QQQ Trust (NasdaqGM: QQQ) was No. 2. Fueled by inflows of $1.58 billion into the “Q’s,” Invesco PowerShares pulled in a total of $2.24 billion in new money last month.

In the No. 3 and No. 4 spots were BlackRock, the parent of the world’s-biggest ETF firm, iShares; and Vanguard Group. iShares attracted $1.87 billion, while Vanguard attracted $1.34 billion. Seeing Vanguard behind the other three ETF firms was a departure from past months, when it has routinely been at the top of the asset-gathering list.

Junk Bounces Back
Two popular high-yield corporate debt ETFs came back into favor last month after suffering major outflows in June, as investors grew skittish about the ramifications of the economic recovery losing steam.

But with analysts saying corporate balance sheets are generally well managed, and that the prospects of mass defaults of corportate debt are rather remote, investors moved back into the junk ETFs the following month.

The iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (NYSEArca: HYG) collected $506.3 million in July after bleeding $548.2 million in June, while the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond Fund (NYSEArca: JNK) pulled in $407.6 million after losing $403.5 to redemptions in June.

Japan also remained in favor, as it has since the destructive March 11 earthquake and tsumani. The iShares MSCI Japan Index Fund (NYSEArca: EWJ) gathered $784.4 million in new money, bringing total assets in the fund to $8.24 billion.

Additionally, Van Eck’s Market Vectors Agribusiness continues on an asset-gathering tear. It collected another $434.3 million in assets in July -- after it gathered $474.3 million in June and after it was the single most popular ETF in May, hauling in $1.41 billion in new assets.

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