Gold continued to attract the strongest inflows of all commodity segments. For the year to date, gold ETFs have attracted €4,981m (£4,249m). Precious metals remain the strongest overall commodities area, with silver also seeing significant asset flows. Agriculture has been the weakest area.
The strongest equity flows went into Germany, Japan and the UK. Over €1bn (£863m) flowed into European equity indices, suggesting that some ETF investors believe that the sell-off in European assets is now overdone.
Emerging markets continue their popularity, with investors favouring a broad market approach rather than individual countries. However, where investors did make an allocation to single emerging markets, India and Russia emerged favourites.
The London Stock Exchange has seen the lion’s share of recent fund launches with Source launching a range of single country ETFs on Brazil, China and India, and ETF Securities launching a range of industrial metal ETCs on nickel, tin and copper. HSBC has also launched funds on the MSCI Turkey and World indices.
BlackRock remains the largest ETF provider in the European market with a market share of 32.7%. However, this year has seen substantial growth from a number of new players, notably HSBC and Source.
