The total global ETF flows reached US$32.1 billion in September, with inflows into the ETF market of $US27.1 billion. This brought the total asset value of global ETFs to $US2.2 trillion. Investors particularly favoured large cap developed equities with higher beta strategies.
The Australian ETF industry differed slightly to the rest of the globe for September, however. While flows were certainly still positive, there were only inflows of $78 million. International equities were still popular amongst investors but dropped more than 75 per cent from August.
Amanda Skelly, head of SPDR ETFs at SSgA, said this could suggest that Australian investors are more apprehensive about the impact of US political issues compared to the rest of the world.
Ms Skelly said it would be interesting to keep monitoring dividend-based Australian equities, as this area has seen dramatic growth over the past year, and continues to experience inflows after its peak in June.
“The strategies have continued to perform well. However, over the last three months they are delivering investors with returns more akin to broad market Aussie equity ETFs,” said Ms Skelly.
The Australian ETF industry now holds $9 billion of assets under management and has grown significantly in the past year by 35 per cent. According to SPDR, this is well above the long-term growth rate and closer to the growth observed in other markets.
“With the deep range of ETFs now available to Aussie investors, they now have the tools to more precisely adjust their investment portfolio based on current market themes, in addition to enabling them to reduce the level of dependence their portfolio has on a particular country, sector or theme,” said Ms Skelly.
