ETF Flows (week ending 5/19/16, source Bloomberg)
Overall: This is getting to sound like a broken record… but the trend continues, large inflows into International Equities, +$5.4B and $6.3B out of US Equities. Just as a reminder it was +$5.6B into International Equities the week prior and +$5.4B the week before that. A very consistent movement of money.
That consistency is also present where the money went into International areas. Developed Markets added another +$2.0B last week (+$2.7B previous week) as EFA saw the highest inflows amongst all ETFs for the 2nd week in a row. This week EFA posted +$872M inflows (+$1.1B previous week). VEA wasn’t far behind, posting +$747M last week. Emerging Markets posted +$1.5B, the same as the prior week. Once again IEMG led in this space with +$538M. VWO, EMB, and EEM also saw healthy inflows. Next, European ETFs posted large inflows of +$1.4B (+944M previous week) last week. VGK led inflows in Europe with +$680M. EZU, IEV, IEUR, and EWG also saw inflows. On the outflow side, Japan led outflows with -$210M.
Brazil was in the spotlight last week with their political crisis. So, did investor yank investment from the country? It doesn’t appear so – Friday’s flows provided some insight. EWZ posted a +$350M inflow, increasing fund size by 7%. More on Brazil in the chart section.
Turning to US Equities… outflows picked up with -$6.3B in redemptions. Most of the inflows were in just a few ETFs: IWM, SPY, QQQ, and XLF (see below for exact numbers). In sectors, Financials led outflows with XLF capturing the majority of the outflows. Materials also saw heavy outflows with GDX -$348M, XLB -$178M, and NUGT -$128M. Industrials, Health Care, and Utilities also saw outflows. Tech & Energy led inflows last week. A couple standouts were HACK, the Cyber Security ETF, posting +$49M inflows and ROBO, the Robotics and Automation ETF, posting +$43M inflows.
Fixed Income ETFs posted +$3.3B of inflows last week with LQD (Investment Grade Bonds) leading inflows with +$720M. AGG, EMB, BNDX, BIV, and BSV also saw inflows > $100M. VIX related ETFs saw a noticeable pick-up in activity – VXX saw inflows of +$104M in the beginning of the week (prior to the selloff). What was particularly interesting was the outflows post Wednesday’s selloff as it appears there was profit taking. UVXY saw -$45M of outflows, and SVXY (short VIX) saw inflows of +$320M. Gold ETFs were quiet with GLD and IAU netting off to make flows flat for the week.
