ETFGI, a leading independent research and consultancy firm covering trends in the global ETFs and ETPs ecosystem, reported today that ETFs and ETPs listed globally gathered net inflows of US$20.44 billion during March, bringing year-to-date net inflows to US$119.13 billion which is higher than the US$99.06 billion gathered at this point last year.

Happy 30th Anniversary to the #ETF Industry @ETFGI reports #ETFs and #ETPs listed globally gathered net inflows of US$20.44 billion during March 2020 https://t.co/upDgvCRxDa

— Deborah Fuhr, ETFGI (@deborahfuhr) April 17, 2020

Assets invested in the global ETFs/ETPs industry have decreased by 11.1%, from US$6.04 trillion at the end of February 2020, to US$5.37 trillion at the end of March, according to ETFGI’s March 2020 Global ETFs and ETPs industry landscape insights report, an annual paid-for research subscription service. (All dollar values in USD unless otherwise noted.)

Highlights

• Happy 30th Anniversary to the ETF Industry
• ETFs and ETPs listed globally gathered net inflows of US$20.44 billion during March
• Year-to-date net inflows of $119.13 billion are the 3rd highest when compared with year-to-date inflows by this point of time in previous years.
• Assets of $5.37 trillion invested in the Global ETFs/ETPs industry at the end of March are the 2^ndhighest for this month in previous years.

The global ETFs industry celebrated its 30^th anniversary on March 9, 2020 – 30 years since the listing of the first successful ETF – the Toronto Stock Exchange listed the Toronto 35 Index Participation Fund, known as TIPs. That ETF still exists today and is now known as the iShares S&P/TSX 60 index ETF XIU with assets of C$7.81billon, now owned by BlackRock. The first successful ETF launch in the US, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust ticker SPY, was nearly 3 years later on January 22, 1993 by State Street Global Advisors. SPY is the world’s largest ETF with $252.54 billion in assets under management.

“At the end of March, the S&P 500 was down 12.35% as the pandemic (Covid-19) forced US government to take strict measures and set some form of lockdown around the states reinforcing the fear for deep recession and high unemployment. Outside the U.S., the S&P Developed ex-U.S. BMI plummeted nearly 14.29%.  The S&P Emerging BMI dove 16.97% during the month and Global equities as measured by the S&P Global BMI plunged 14.32% as well.” According to Deborah Fuhr, managing partner, founder and owner of ETFGI.

At the end of March 2020, the Global ETFs/ETPs industry had 7,996 ETFs/ETPs, with 16,031 listings from 450 providers on 72 exchanges in 58 countries.

ETFs/ETPs listed globally gathered net inflows of $20.44 billion during March. Equity ETFs/ETPs listed globally gathered net inflows of $31.02 billion, bringing net inflows for 2020 to $69.00 billion, greater than the $36.16 billion in net inflows equity products had attracted by the end of March 2019.  Fixed income ETFs/ETPs listed globally reported net outflows of $26.88 billion during March, bringing net inflows for 2020 to $9.01 billion, lower than the $56.28 billion in net inflows fixed income products had attracted by the end of March 2019.  Commodity ETFs/ETPs reported $10.46 billion in net inflows bringing net inflows for 2020 to $19.99 billion, which is greater than the $864 million in net inflows gathered at this point in 2019.

Substantial inflows can be attributed to the top 20 ETFs by net new assets, which collectively gathered $79.82 billion at the end of March, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY US) gathered $13.10 billion alone.

Investors have tended to invest in Equity, Gold and short term fixed income ETFs in March.

Source: ETFGI