August ETF Stats: Emerging Markets Gain Inflows...Again

August brought about a curious, perhaps concerning trend in the ETF arena as total assets dipped to $815 billion from $835 billion in July, marking the first month the industry has seen outflows since January. The S&P 500 SPDR SPY, the largest ETF in the world by assets, saw $6.6 billion in outflows, not surprising given how weak stocks were last month. Vanguard continued to assert itself as an ETF issuer to be reckoned with, gaining $3.7 billion in new investments during the month. Investors took $12 billion out of U.S. equity ETFs during the month, but poured $4.5 billion into international equity funds. Leveraged ETFs remained popular among investors as ProShares and Direxion gained $1.2 billion and $516 million in new investments, respectively. The iShares MSCI Emeging Markets Index Fund EEM and the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF VWO continued to duke it out for supremacy among emerging markets funds, gaining $1.8 billion and $1.9 billion in new investments, respectively. Not surprisingly, some of the year's best performers among country-specific funds continued to see robust inflows, led by the iShares MSCI Thailand Investable Market Index Fund THD, which gained $144 million in new cash. The iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index TUR saw new investmetns total $98 million and the Global X/InterBolsa FTSE Colombia 20 ETF GXG was no slouch either, taking in $23 million in new investments.