The Australian ETF industry recorded another month of growth in November, fuelled by the strong performance of share markets both locally and abroad.
According to the latest BetaShares Australian ETF Review, the industry’s assets under management increased by 3.4 per cent or $4.4 billion to $136.1 billion, close to the all-time high of $136.9 billion reached in December last year.
BetaShares said that the majority of the industry growth in November was attributable to the strong markets, while around a quarter was attributable to net flows which totalled $1.1 billion.
Over the past 12 months, the pace of industry growth remains positive but relatively slow at 2.5 per cent, representing an increase of $3.3 billion.
About 312 exchange-traded products were reported to be trading on the ASX in November. BetaShares noted that ASX ETF trading value was down by 9 per cent compared to a month earlier to $9.7 billion.
Four new products were launched during the month, including JPMorgan Asset Management’s first locally listed ETFs, Australia’s first copper miners ETF from Global X and BetaShares’ own interest rate hedged ETF, which was also described as an Australian first.
November also saw the delisting of two crypto funds offered by Cosmos Asset Management centred around Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“The ‘China reopening trade’ caused Chinese and Asian-focused ETFs to rally this month, after a very difficult period for performance for this region,” said BetaShares chief commercial officer Ilan Israelstam.
“As such, Asian exposures were the best performers in November — this included China Large Cap, as well as our Asia Technology Tigers ETF (ASIA) which recorded ~23 per cent monthly performance.”
The iShares FTSE China Large-Cap ETF (IZZ) surged by 28.3 per cent, the iShares S&P Asia 50 ETF (IAA) grew by 21.3 per cent, and the Platinum Asia Fund (Quoted Managed Hedge Fund) (PAXX) lifted by 17.9 per cent.
“Fixed income was the asset class category recording the highest level of flows this month ($333 million in net flows) with investors increasingly perceiving that ‘the worst may be over’ for further yield increases,” said Mr Israelstam.
This was followed by Australian equities ($330 million), international equities ($167 million), listed property ($156 million) and short ETFs ($95 million). Meanwhile, the top categories by outflows were commodities ($24 million), cash ($19 million) and currency ($3 million).
