Canadians choose fixed-income over equity ETFs

Exchange-traded products listed in Canada gathered net inflows of US$400 million in January, says new data from ETFGI.

The data shows the Canadian ETP industry consists of:

• 347 ETFs with 490 listings;
• assets of US$62 billion; and
• nine providers listed on one exchange.

During the month of January, fixed-income ETPs gathered the largest net inflows (+US$366 million), while equity ETPs saw the largest net outflows (-US$118 million). That was closely followed by commodities ETPs, which recorded net outflows of US$8 million.

Read: Canadian ETF market booming

“Investors showed a strong preference for fixed income exposure during January as volatility increased,” says Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI. Equities likely went out of vogue in January, she adds, because “the S&P 500 was down 4%, developed markets were flat, emerging markets were down slightly, and frontier markets where down 3%.”

As for new issues, six funds were launched by three providers in January. Also, the top 100 ETPs, out of the full 347, accounted for about 86% of Canadian ETP assets—the top 12 hold more than US$1 billion in assets combined.

Read: Which ETFs are hot?

Global stats

The overall net asset flows for global ETPs in January were US$12.2 billion, says ETFGI’s data.

In January, net inflows of US$13.3 billion went into fixed-income ETP products, while US$5.2 billion of net inflows went into commodity products. At the same time, equity ETPs suffered net outflows of US$8.0 billion.

Read: Going global in bonds

EFTGI’s data shows the global ETP industry consists of:

• 5,585 exchange-traded products with 10,770 listings;
• assets of US$2.77 trillion; and
• 242 providers listed on 63 exchanges in 51 countries.

In January alone, 55 new products were listed by 26 providers, compared to the 56 products that were launched a year earlier. As well, 39 ETPs were closed in January, compared to only 11 closures in January 2014.

Read:

Institutional investors adding more ETFs

Updated: Leveraged ETFs small but risky

Fixed-income ETF flows surge