The Australian ETF industry suffered a $1.7 billion drop in market capitalisation in February as the sharemarket continued to decline.
Combined with the $5.2 billion fall seen in January, the market cap of Aussie ETFs sat at $130.1 billion as of the end of last month, nearly $7 billion below the record highs seen in December according to a monthly review conducted by BetaShares.
“Australian ETF investors were cautious this month given geopolitical conflict, inflation fears and volatile markets, resulting in net flows of only $212m for the month – the lowest level of net flows in 5 years,” said BetaShares COO Ilan Israelstam.
The firm said that trading values remained elevated during the month due to market volatility, reaching the third highest level on record at $10.2 billion.
On the back of $689 million in flows out of the Magellan Global Fund, international equities ETFs suffered a net outflow of $300 million, the first ever net outflow for the category.
However, the Magellan Global Fund held onto the top spot for ETFs by market cap ($11.67 billion), ahead of the Vanguard Australian Shares (VAS) Index ETF ($10.04 billion) and the iShares S&P 500 ETF ($5.03 billion).
The highest net inflows for the month were also recorded for the aforementioned VAS ETF ($207 million) and the iShares Core S&P/ASX 200 ETF ($122 million).
Australian equities were the top ETF category by inflows ($318 million) followed by multiasset ($103 million), Australian bonds ($86 million) and ethical international equities ($83 million).
Two gold mining ETFs ranked as the top performing products with a gain of 11.8 per cent for the BetaShares Global Gold Miners ETF - Currency Hedged (MNRS) and a rise of 10.6 per cent for the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX).
A total of 287 exchange traded products were available on the ASX during the month with five new products launched, including new thematic ETFs for online retail and e-commerce and video games.
Behind only the Magellan Global Fund, the Australian High Interest Cash ETF from BetaShares had the highest monthly outflows ($289 million) followed by the BetaShares Global Energy Companies ETF - Currency Hedged ($99 million).
VAS was the top ETF issuer by inflow value year-to-date with a total of $1.24 billion or 47 per cent, followed by BetaShares on $582 million (22 per cent) and VanEck with $346 million (13.21 per cent).
Jon Bragg
Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.
