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 (NYSE: 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 (NYSE: EEM) and the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF (NYSE: 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 (NYSE: THD), which gained $144 million in new cash.
The iShares MSCI Turkey Investable Market Index (NYSE: TUR) saw new investmetns total $98 million and the Global X/InterBolsa FTSE Colombia 20 ETF (NYSE: GXG) was no slouch either, taking in $23 million in new investments.
