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The Markets March 8, 2012
ETF Assets Up $44B in February
Exchange-traded fund (ETF) assets increased by more
than $44 billion in the month of February, up 3.9%.
Reported by Tara Cantore
According to the State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) ETF Snapshot report, ETF flows nearly topped $12 billion in February. The International-Emerging category had the most significant inflows at $4.6 billion. The Size-Large Cap category posted $4.8 billion in outflows, zeroing out the inflows it had in January.
The top three managers in the U.S. ETF marketplace as of February 29 were BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard. Collectively, they account for approximately 83% of the U.S.-listed ETF market.
The top three ETFs in terms of dollar volume traded for the month were the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], iShares Russell 2000 [IWM] and PowerShares QQQ [QQQ].
By asset class, International – Developed and Emerging Markets gained 5.7% and 6.0%, respectively. Domestic Large Cap, Mid Cap and Small Cap markets gained 4.3%, 4.5% and 2.1%, respectively. The U.S. Aggregate was flat and the U.S. Treasury was slightly negative, while the U.S. Corporate Bond was market was slightly positive in February. Commodities rose 6.1%.
More information is available at http://www.spdrs.com.