The Markets February 14, 2011

U.S. ETF Assets Up to $1T

Having broken the $1 trillion milestone in December, many questioned whether inflows into U.S. ETFs had become overheated, according to Morningstar.

Reported by

PLANADVISER staff

Though U.S. ETF net assets under management were up slightly month over month, settling at $1.02 trillion by the end of January, flows tempered their pace. Total net flows fell to just over $11 billion from $18 billion during the first month of the year.

Although U.S. stock ETFs drove inflows in January for ETFs overall, inflows for the asset class were down nearly 50% month over month, according to Morningstar data. U.S. stock ETFs saw inflows of $9.9 billion in January, compared to $17.2 billion in December.

Commodities ETFs lost $1.7 billion in January to lead outflows among the ETF asset classes, and precious metals ETFs were responsible for the majority of these redemptions. However, several futures-based broad agricultural commodities funds saw inflows.

After outflows in December, taxable-bond ETFs took in approximately $2.9 billion in January to mark the month’s second-highest inflows by asset class, behind U.S. stock ETFs.

International-stock ETFs, which had the second-highest inflows in 2010 among the ETF asset classes, saw modest outflows of $491 million in January.

The Morningstar data is at http://corporate.morningstar.com/us/documents/FundFlows/FundFlowsFeb2011.pdf.