Australia’s ETF industry hit an all-time high of $139.7 billion in funds under management (FUM) at the end of February, up from the previous record of $138.5 billion set a month earlier.
In contrast to January, the majority of the growth seen last month came from investor flows. According to the latest Australian ETF Review from Betashares, these accounted for approximately 70 per cent of the monthly growth, with total net flows of $0.9 billion.
“Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen the industry grow in size, albeit at a slow grind relative to previous years, given market declines — with an increase of 7.4 per cent year on year, or $9.7 billion,” commented Betashares chief commercial officer Ilan Israelstam.
ASX ETF trading value was reported to have increased significantly in February, rising 28 per cent versus January with a total value of $9 billion.
Four new products were launched during the month, including three covered call funds from Global X as well as the new Platinum Global Transition Fund.
“As both Australian and global sharemarkets declined, the US dollar rallied, and the leveraged US Dollar Fund, YANK, topped the performance tables, with ~11 per cent return for the month,” said Mr Israelstam.
Betashares noted that carbon credit exposures also performed strongly, with an approximately 9 per cent rise for both the VanEck Global Carbon Credits ETF (Synthetic) (XCO2) and the Global X Global Carbon ETF (Synthetic) (GCO2).
The next best performers were the Global X FANG+ ETF (FANG) and the Global X 21Shares Ethereum ETF (EETH), which were both up by around 8 per cent.
“Unlike January, this month, we saw considerable interest in broad market Australian equities ETFs ($375 million inflows), with investors seemingly taking the view that the ‘lucky country’ remains in a better position economically than other developed global markets,” Mr Israelstam said.
Fixed income was the next most popular category with $370 million of inflows, followed by international equities ($71 million), short ($29 million), and listed property ($26 million).
“It is notable that although inflows remain relatively muted compared to previous years, we are not seeing any major outflows across the industry,” Mr Israelstam stated.
“The exception to this has been Active ETFs, where ~$300 million of outflows have been recorded to date this year.”
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.
