Australian ETF assets slipped in March as weaker market performance dragged down valuations, but investor demand has remained resilient, with inflows extending a record run and trading activity accelerating.
According to Cboe Australia’s March 2026 ETF dashboard, total ETF assets fell 4 per cent month on month to $329.5 billion, although the market remained up strongly on an annual basis.
The dashboard showed Australian ETFs attracted $5.3 billion in monthly inflows in March, marking the ninth consecutive month in which flows topped $4 billion.
Over the past 12 months, ETF net flows reached $56.9 billion, with yearly flows up 54 per cent year on year, underscoring that the March pullback in assets was driven by performance rather than investor withdrawals.
International equities remained the dominant destination for new money as Cboe’s headline figures showed 44 per cent of March flows went into international equity ETFs, while 33 per cent went to domestic equity and 13 per cent to domestic fixed income.
The monthly breakdown in the report showed $2.13 billion flowed into international equities, $1.76 billion into domestic equities and $700.2 million into domestic fixed income.
Using the figures supplied in the dashboard, international equities accounted for roughly 42 per cent of total March inflows, domestic equities about 35 per cent and domestic fixed income close to 14 per cent, broadly reinforcing the continued preference for offshore exposure despite recent market volatility.
Active ETFs also continued to attract a meaningful share of demand, with 12 per cent of March flows heading into active strategies, based on the monthly active inflow figure of $585.3 million out of $5.05 billion total monthly flows shown in the dashboard.
Despite the monthly dip in assets, broader growth remained intact with total ETF assets up 31.9 per cent year on year to $329.5 billion, while the headline summary on page one described annual growth as sitting at about 35 per cent year on year.
Equity products continued to dominate the market, with international equities accounting for $154.4 billion in assets and domestic equities $84.8 billion, together representing more than 70 per cent of total ETF assets.
The report also pointed to a pickup in secondary market activity, with ETF trading averaging $1.2 billion a day in March, up 19 per cent on the previous month.
Average daily transactions reached 92,914 through the month, suggesting the March market sell-off drove both fresh allocations and more active repositioning by investors.
New product launches also continued to push the market higher in breadth even as valuations softened. Nine ETFs launched in March, lifting the total number of listed ETFs in Australia to 470, according to Cboe’s March dashboard. Over the past 12 months, the market added 65 new products.
Additionally, Cboe’s dashboard showed passive ETFs held $262.4 billion in assets, or 79.6 per cent of the market, compared with $67.1 billion for active ETFs.
Passive products also captured $49.2 billion of the $56.7 billion in annual flows, equivalent to 86.8 per cent, although active ETFs still accounted for 183 of the 470 products on market and continued to build a foothold in specialist and higher-fee segments.
At the issuer level, Vanguard remained the largest ETF provider in Australia with $90.6 billion in assets and 27.5 per cent market share, followed by BetaShares on $63.6 billion and 19.3 per cent, and iShares on $54.5 billion and 16.5 per cent.
Vanguard also led annual flows at $18.5 billion, ahead of BetaShares on $14.4 billion and iShares on $8.2 billion.
The monthly leaders reflected continued demand for broad-market building blocks as Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (VAS) topped March inflows with $867.6 million, followed by Vanguard MSCI Index International Shares ETF (VGS) on $525.8 million and iShares Core S&P/ASX 200 ETF (IOZ) on $311.9 million.
Meanwhile, iShares S&P 500 ETF (IVV) recorded the largest monthly outflow at $433.4 million.
