The rising popularity of exchange-traded products (ETPs) is underlined by data that shows $247 billion (€180 billion) of net new money globally flowed into equity ETPs last year, making 2013 the best year on record.
The only other year in which equity ETP inflows exceeded $200 billion was 2008, according to the data from BlackRock, which owns the world’s largest ETF provider by assets, iShares.
The majority of the new money, nearly $150 billion, went into US-focused vehicles. Pan-European equity products accounted for just $27 billion, however this was more than twice the net inflow seen in 2012.
The inflows to developed market equity products more than compensated for a net outflow of more than $10 billion from emerging market equity ETPs during the year.
Including non-equity ETPs, 2013 was the third best year on record in terms of inflows, according to BlackRock. Fixed income ETPs attracted a net inflow of $28 billion during the year, less than in previous years, and gold ETPs suffered a net outflow.
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