Investing March 8, 2013

ETF Flows Top $7.7B in February

March 8, 2013 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – Exchange-traded fund (ETF) assets increased by $1.3 billion, or 0.1%, in February. 
Reported by

According to State Street Global Advisors’ (SSgA) most-recent “ETF Snapshot” report 1,236 ETFs, with assets totaling $1.4 trillion, were managed by 38 ETF managers as of February 28, 2013. 

The S&P 500 returned 1.4%, while the MSCI EAFE decreased 1%. Commodities were negative, with the S&P GSCI down 4.4% and Gold decreasing 4.6%. U.S. Bonds were positive with the Barclays U.S. Treasury Index and the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index each increasing 0.5%. 

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ETF flows topped $7.7 billion in February. The Dividend/Fundamental category had a leading $3.1 billion of inflows, increasing its year-to-date total net flows to $7 billion. The Size-Large cap category had the most significant outflows during February with $4.1 billion leaving the category. 

The top three managers in the U.S. ETF marketplace were BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, who collectively accounted for approximately 84% of the U.S.-listed ETF marketplace. The top three ETFs in terms of dollar value traded for the month of February were the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], iShares Russell 2000 [IWM] and PowerShares QQQ [QQQ].

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