Despite
geopolitical events creating investor uncertainty
throughout 2019, a rallying equity market and a growing bond ETF offering resulted in the global ETF market netting positive flows of some €494.9bn for the year.
According to data from Amundi, global equity ETFs pulled in €250.8bn over the last 12 months, driven significantly by North American exposures which received €146.3bn in new assets.
Global and emerging market exposures were the next popular regions of ETFs with €44.4bn and €21.6bn in net flows, respectively.
The only equity exposure with negative net flows was the eurozone which lost €14bn in assets.
Fixed income ETFs were leading the asset classes in terms of flows throughout most of 2019 but fell just short of equities with €228.6bn. Government bond, corporate bond and aggregate bond ETFs all posted respectable flows of €73.9bn, €87.9bn and €55.1bn.
European ETF industry turns 20 years old
Furthermore, commodity ETPs recorded inflows of €9.6bn where €8.5bn of which came from US-listed products.
Amid assets surpassing the $1trn barrier, European-listed ETF flows were led by fixed income ETFs with €54.9bn, €6.9bn ahead of equities.
In Asia and the US, the opposite occurred with equities leading inflows by €19bn for the former and €10bn for the latter.