ETF assets continue to fall
Assets held in exchange-traded funds have continued to fall, but the industry is still expected to top $1 trillion (€731bn) next year, the latest report from a leading figure in the ETF sector has claimed.
According to Debbie Fuhr, who is now a managing director in Barclays Global Investors' ETF research implementation strategy team, global ETF assets stood at $764bn at the end of September. This was a fall from the end of April, when they were $805bn.
However, Fuhr maintained her prediction for growth in the sector in the medium term, forecasting that the industry will hit $1 trillion next year and $2 trillion in 2012. She added that European assets, at $145bn at the end of September, would increase to over $200bn next year.
In a presentation on the industry, Fuhr said that in the first nine months of this year investors moved assets into fixed income and commodity ETFs while assets declined in equities products, especially global excluding the US and Asian funds.
At the end of the third quarter, just over half of global ETF assets were invested in North American equities, and over 30% was divided equally between fixed income, emerging markets equities and European equities. Assets held in US exchange-traded funds fell 6.6% over the nine months, but assets in the smaller European exchange-traded funds industry rose 13%.
Exchange-traded funds enjoyed substantial growth in recent years, but asset growth came to a halt earlier this year as markets plunged and investors pulled assets from equities markets worldwide.
-- Write to Phil Craig at pcraig@efinancialnews.com
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