As markets continued to drop in October, net inflows into exchange-traded funds topped $7.3 billion. That raised the level of new money, minus redemptions, shifting into ETFs to $108.6 billion for the year, according to the latest data compiled by the National Stock Exchange.

"Despite one of the worst months on record, the ETF train keeps rolling," said Mike Traynor, head of strategy at the NSX.

But not all of the news was good for ETF enthusiasts. In October, 272 ETFs had net outflows—some 28 more than those that recorded net inflows. "That's probably the first time that has ever happened," said Traynor.

The bleeding isn't surprising given one of the worst market performances in history in October, he adds. "What is surprising, though, is that more funds didn't have net outflows," said Traynor.

The latest figures fly in the face of current trends with traditional mutual funds. Those portfolios have been suffering heavy redemptions this year, particularly stock mutual funds. According to the Investment Company Institute, equity-focused mutual funds in the U.S. had net outflows of around $120 billion for the year through September.

By comparison, ETFs had net inflows of more than $100 billion during that same time frame.

"ETFs do compete with ownership of stocks as well as mutual funds," said Traynor. "So it's not a matter of seeing ETFs cannibalizing one or the other. From a numbers perspective, the growth in use of ETFs seems to be coming from a lot of different areas."

In terms of total assets, October ended with ETFs holding $488.9 billion. That was down from $587.8 billion a month earlier and $593.8 billion at the end of October 2007.

"Since we saw net inflows, almost all of those losses came from market depreciation," said Traynor.

The top three ETF companies all had net inflows in October, but still saw total asset levels drop. Barclays Global Investors had inflows of $3.5 billion, leading all ETF managers, but saw total assets drop from $282 billion to $232 billion. State Street Global Advisors had net inflows of $3.3 billion, but saw assets fall from $169 billion to $143 billion. Vanguard has net inflows of $2.7 billion, but saw total assets drop from $46 billion to $40 billion.

"The asterisk with SSgA is that while their net inflow was $3.3 billion, if you subtract SPY, the company actually had net outflows," said Traynor. (See charts at end of article.)

Among the top five ETF companies, only Invesco PowerShares had net outflows for the month, seeing close to $2 billion siphoned off, primarily related to outflows in its flagship QQQ ETF (Nasdaq: QQQQ). PowerShares' outflow level was close to three times as high as the second-largest outflow level, experienced by the Ameristock/Victoria Bay ETF family, which had $749 million in net outflows.

But that was due to Ameristock's flagship United States Oil ETF (AMEX: USO), which had net outflow during the month of $520 million.

"Certainly there are products that aren't going to survive. But the latest numbers show that ETFs remain immensely popular," said Traynor. "About $400 billion in net cash flow has come into ETFs since 2005. That's an amazing amount in less than four years."

The pullback in ETF inflows and market depreciation did nothing to dampen the trend of overall trading gains by ETFs as part of the U.S. equities market. There was close to $3.3 trillion in October ETF trading volume, another record level, up from $2.8 trillion (35%) in September.

But comparing trading volume versus all types of stocks trading on U.S. exchanges in the month, some 38% were ETFs. That was also a record performance, says Traynor.

And again, due to the widespread use of the SPDR (AMEX: SPY), State Street Global Advisors represented approximately one-half of all ETF trading volume.

"The SPDR has been there for awhile. But that's definitely changing as more and more products are becoming more actively traded," said Traynor.

Three of the top 10 most-traded ETFs in 2008 are now ProShares 2x inverse (or ultra-short) funds. Those are the UltraShort Financials (AMEX: SKF); UltraShort QQQ ProShares (AMEX: QID) and UltraShort S&P 500 (AMEX: SDS).

"ProShares is having a very big year," said Traynor.

The much-maligned exchange-traded note market continued to suffer in October. Only one ETN, managed by HSBC, had net inflows—of roughly $2 million. Barclays Capital had net outflows of $402 million, representing the majority of the ETN market's $520 million in net outflows for the month.

In terms of category leaders, bonds along with currencies and commodities were all negative in terms of flows in October. Commodity ETFs led the way in outflows with $1.7 billion; followed by currency ($862 million) and fixed income ($647 million).

Six of the 10 largest ETFs had net inflows in October, led by SPY, which took in $4.4 billion. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSEArca: EEM), had the second-highest net inflows for the month, at $3.6 billion.

The four industry flagships to experience net outflows were the iShares Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM), down $3.766 billion; the PowerShares QQQs, down $1.23 billion; the SPDR Financial (AMEX: XLF), down $912 million; and the SPDR Equity Gold (NYSEArca: GLD), down $151 million.

Month End October 2008

Month End October 2008

Month End October 2008

Month End October 2008

-- Eric Rosenbaum contributed to this report for IU.com.

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