SOURCE: Barclays Global Investors

 

Global ETF assets by type of exposure, ranked by AUM, as at end August 2009

Top 5 ETF providers around the world ranked by AUM, as at end August 2009

Global ETF asset growth, as at end August 2009

LONDON--(Marketwire - September 18, 2009) - Global ETF assets have hit an all time high of US$891 Bn at the end of August 2009, which is 3.9% above the previous all time high of US$858 Bn set in July 2009, and 10.6% above the high set in April 2008, according to the latest figures from Barclays Global Investors. The global ETF industry had 1,773 ETFs with 3,137 listings, assets of US$891 Bn from 95 providers on 41 exchanges at the end of August 2009. YTD assets have risen by 25.3%, which is more than the 18.0% rise in the MSCI World Index in US dollar terms.

Contrasting this to the latest data from Strategic Insight, net inflows to mutual funds (excluding ETFs) were US$5.3 Bn, while net sales of ETFs were US$49.0 Bn during the first six months of 2009.

Emerging market equity ETFs have seen the largest increase in assets, growing by US$51.8 Bn YTD to reach US$378.1 Bn at the end of August 2009. Fixed Income ETFs was the next most popular asset category with ETF assets rising by US$41.1 Bn to reach US$144.9 Bn at the end of August 2009.

Deborah Fuhr, Global Head of ETF Research & Implementation Strategy at BGI, said, "The net inflows of US$49.0 Bn in the past six months shows demand for ETFs is still growing as clients view ETFs as useful tools to help them implement many types of exposures."

Notes for editors:

ETF Landscape -- Industry Review is BGI's comprehensive monthly market commentary, which covers Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) across the globe. ETFs are open-end index funds that provide daily portfolio transparency, are listed and traded on exchanges like stocks on a secondary basis, as well as utilising a unique creation and redemption process for primary transactions. ETPs are products that have similarities to ETFs in the way they trade and settle, but they do not use a mutual fund structure. The use of other structures, including grantor trusts, partnerships, notes and commodity pools by ETPs, can create different tax and regulatory implications for investors when compared to ETFs, which are funds. This document includes rankings of ETF and ETP providers, ETFs, index providers and exchanges globally, in the United States, Europe, Japan, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, as well as by country. This commentary should not be regarded as a research report.

In the United States the term ETFs is increasingly being used to cover a broad set of products with dissimilar characteristics from those described above, including products such as closed-end funds, HOLDRS and notes. These product structures do not fall within the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) definition of an ETF, which is posted on the Internet: "Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are investment companies that are legally classified as open-end companies or Unit Investment Trusts (UITs), but that differ from traditional open-end companies and UITs in several respects": These differences can be found at: www.sec.gov/answers/etf.htm.

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