ETFs listed in Europe suffered negative monthly flows in August for the first time since February 2016, according to data from Lipper.
The European ETF industry saw outflows of €8.8bn during the month taking the total assets under management (AUM) for the region to €757bn.
The outflows were entirely driven by investor concerns about the health of the equity market which suffered €12.2bn redemptions.
Detlef Glow, head of EMEA research at Lipper, said this is a sign there are investor concerns around decreasing company earnings, escalating trade tensions between the US and China and increased volatility in the stock market.
Digging deeper, global equities witnessed the most redemptions followed by eurozone equities and emerging market equities.
Meanwhile, fixed income ETFs continued their popularity this year seeing the highest inflows across all asset classes of €3.3bn. EMU government bonds was the most popular asset class of the month with inflows of €1.1bn.
Earlier this year, fixed income ETFs saw a record $107bn inflows in H1, the first time flows have crossed the $100bn mark in the asset class, according to data from Morningstar.
iShares and Vanguard dominated the inflows last month, capturing €1.2bn and €1.1bn, respectively. In third was BNP Paribas with €400m inflows.
The flows of the 10-top promoters accounted for inflows of €3.4bn while 21 ETF issuers suffered outflows during August.
