ETF Assets Down 5% in May

According to the ETF Snapshot Report from State Street Global Advisors, 1,251 ETFs with assets totaling $1.1 trillion were managed by 37 ETF managers as of the end of the month.  

Market decreases were the reason for the fall in assets, as flows into ETFs topped $5 billion in May. The fixed-income category had $7.9 billion of inflows. International-emerging had the highest outflows of $3.5 billion.  

As for market performance, international-developed and emerging markets decreased 11.5% and 11.2%, respectively. Domestic large cap, mid cap and small cap were all negative, losing 6.0%, 6.5% and 6.3%, respectively. Commodities fell 13.0%. The U.S. Aggregate, U.S. Treasury and U.S. Corporate Bond categories posted market gains at 0.9%, 1.7% and 0.7% respectively.  

The top three managers in the U.S. ETF marketplace in May 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].