Schwab ETF Study: Bond Funds Dominate 2011 Inflows

A report released today by Charles Schwab SCHW, the largest discount broker, said U.S. fixed income ETFs raked in 54% of all inflows to exchange-traded products last year while U.S. equity ETFs garnered a third of inflows to ETFs in 2011. Final data for 2011 show there were 1,369 exchange-traded products with $1.06 trillion in assets under management. That compares to just over $1 trillion at the end of 2010 and almost $791 billion at the end of 2009. The Schwab report also noted registered investment advisors increased their ETF assets in separately managed accounts by 30 percent in 2011 and the top 10 percent of RIAs by assets under management have the bulk of their ETF assets in U.S. and international equity funds (62%); smaller firms use U.S. fixed income ETFs 50 percent more than their larger peers. Intermediate-/Long-term bond ETFs captured 39 percent of advisor fixed income ETF flows; short- and ultra-short bond ETFs ranked second at 26 percent, according to the Schwab report. The Schwab report was done in conjunction with ETF Trends. Despite the fact that gold traded higher last year, the report found inflows to gold ETFs dropped by more than half and other precious metals experienced significant outflows in 2011. The largest gold ETF is the SPDR Gold Shares GLD while the largest silver is the iShares Silver Trust SLV. At the end of 2011, the two largest bond ETFs were the iShares Barclays TIPS Bond TIP and the iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF LQD, according to data from the ETF Industry Association. With $95.4 billion in AUM, the SPDR S&P 500 SPY remains the world's largest ETF.