On pace for a record-breaking year of ETF inflows

My pal Nick Colas at Convergex, chief market strategist at Convergex, a global brokerage company based in New York, put out some interesting info on this year’s ETF flows. If the last week of the year is a decent one, the industry will break 2014’s record year:

With just a few days left in the year, it looks like U.S. listed exchange traded funds will break the record for capital inflows set in 2014. Thus far in 2015, these products have added $236.1 billion from incremental investment; last year net issuance totaled $241 billion. As for the destination of that capital, there have been some meaningful shifts over the year.  For example, for all of 2015YTD, U.S. equities represent just 24% ($57.8 billion) of total inflows.

Look at just Q4, however, and the story changes because 59% of this quarter’s total ETF inflows ($87 billion) went to U.S. equity products.  Fixed income investments are part of the other side of that coin, with 23% of total YTD flows ($53.9 billion) as compared to just 12% of the fourth quarter ($10.7 billion). Interest in non-U.S. equities, even funds that hedge currency exposure, is also modestly lower for the final quarter of the year.  Our key takeaway: ETF money flows start 2016 pointed more towards domestic equities than fixed income or international stocks. Even with the recent market volatility, 1 month and 1 week flows show an overwhelming bias to U.S. stocks in terms of net inflows as well.

Source:

Carrie Fisher & ETF Money Flows for 2015
Convergex – December 21st 2015