Exchange traded funds (ETFs) and equivalent products have attracted $40 billion (US$41.4 billion) in global inflows over the first three months of 2011, according to figures from BlackRock.
This has brought the size of the market to $1.4 trillion (US$ 1.5 trillion) in assets under management (AUM). ETFs by themselves grew to $1.3 trillion (US$1.4 trillion), spread across 2,605 ETFs from 142 providers, compared to $1 trillion (US$ 1,08 trillion) at the end of March 2010.
The figures showed that emerging markets ETFs suffered outflows of $6.5 billion (US$ 6.9 billion), while ETFs that track developed market equities attracted inflows of $30.1 billion (US$ 32.7 billion).
Fixed income ETFs saw net inflows of $7.5 billion (US$7.9 billion), with high yield products experiencing inflows, while government bond products lost funds.
"We expect global AUM in ETFs and exchange traded products (ETPs) to increase by 20-30 per cent annually over the next three years, taking the global ETF/ETP industry to approximately US$2 trillion ($1.890 million) in AUM by early 2012," BlackRock global head of ETF research and implementation strategy Deborah Fuhr said.
"Considering ETFs separately, AUM should reach US$2 trillion globally by the end of 2012, US$1 trillion in the United States in 2011 and US$500 billion ($472 billion) in Europe in 2013," she said.
