Assets under management in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Europe increased last month, reaching €454.6 billion compared to €445.6 billion in April.
However, figures released by Lipper show sales only contributed €300 million towards the €9 billion increase in May, suggesting market movements drove the growth.
Safe haven assets such as bond funds enjoyed the highest inflows last month, with €2.1 billion invested in them. European corporate bond ETFs and US corporate bond ETFs saw inflows of €800 million and €300 million, respectively.
Global emerging market equity ETFs also saw inflows of €600 million.
iShares was the best-selling ETF provider last month.
Ursula Marchioni, chief strategist, for iShares Europe, Middle East and Africa, has commented on the firm’s more recent fund flows in relation to the Brexit.
She said there had been strong purchases of iShares Physical Gold exchange-traded commodity as investors derisked their portfolios in relation to Brexit. The gold product saw on June 24 (the date of the referendum result) inflows of $246 million (€221 million), compared to a daily average for May of $15 million.
The other Brexit-related investor approach discovered by iShares was a search for relative value, shown with large inflows into the firm’s Core FTSE 100 Ucits ETF which on the day the referendum result gained $683 million in assets compared to a daily average of $50 million in May.
©2016 funds europe
