Record Breaking Amount of Cash Flowing into Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

The Financial Times reported some eye-popping metrics surrounding exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As I have mentioned repeatedly, we are witnessing the proverbial high tide raises all boats, as the massive amounts of money injections by the Federal Reserve and the spending by the Federal Government, have lifted the ETFs balances like we’ve never seen before. Here are a few notable reporting values:

·         Global net investor inflows into exchange traded funds and products reached $359.2bn in the first three months of 2021, the busiest quarter on record, according to the data provider ETFGI. That lifted net global ETF inflows since the end of March 2020 to just over $1tn.

·         Net inflows into US and Canadian equity ETFs reached $143bn in the first quarter of 2021, up from $30.4bn in the same period last year. Global equity ETFs gathered $46.7bn, more than four times the inflows of $10.5bn registered in the first quarter of 2020. Asia-Pacific equity ETF flows almost doubled to $19.3bn from $9.9bn, according to ETFGI.

·         Vanguard attracted ETF inflows of $96.2bn in the first three months of 2021, up from $50bn in the first quarter of last year when financial markets were retreating due to coronavirus fears…BlackRock’s iShares ETF unit gathered inflows of $71.4bn in the first quarter, compared with just $13.6bn registered in the first three months of 2020. State Street, the third-largest ETF manager globally, gathered first quarter inflows of $23.9bn after seeing net outflows of $2.8bn in the first three months of 2020.