Originally published by BetaShares
ETF Industry “in the black” for the financial year
It has been a very strong half for the Australian ETF industry for the first six months of 2017. The industry’s funds under management grew rapidly, increasing 14% for the half year to end the financial year at a new record high of $29.4B. The industry grew funds under management by $3.6B for the half, setting the scene for a record year of asset growth if such growth is maintained in the second half. Trading activity levels also reached record highs, with trading value increasing 10% compared to the previous half.
Market Size & Growth
Market Cap
- ASX Exchange Traded Funds Market Cap: $29.4B– new record high
- Market cap growth for year: 14%, +$3.6B
New Money
- New unit growth for year (units outstanding by number): 17%
- Net new money (units outstanding by $ value): +$2.8B
Products
- 212 Exchange Traded Products trading on the ASX
- New products: 14 new products launched in the year
Comment: product development activity has been relatively slow this year when compared to the 40 products launched over the course of 2016 (and 23 new products in the second half of 2016). We believe the pace of products is likely to slow somewhat as the industry matures, but we do expect the number of products launched to remain robust into the foreseeable future.
Trading Value
- Trading value increased 10% compared to previous half year
Performance
- Asian equities and Geared US equities were the best performing products for the half.
Top 5 category inflows (by $) - YTD
Comment: There has been a return to interest in Australian equities by ETF investors, although products providing exposure to international equities remain popular. Fixed income ETFs continue to be allocated into, and this is an area we expect to continue to grow as more investors seek to created balanced portfolios usings ETFs alone.
There were no outflows at a broad category level.
Top sub-category inflows (by $) – YTD
Top sub-category outflows (by $) – YTD
Comment: Breaking down the broad categories into sub-categories provides a more nuanced view on where the money flows went so far this year. For example, although the broad categories produced no outflows, at a sub-category level we can see that investors sold off large cap Australian equities and Asian equities. In the case of the Asian equities exposure, we expect this could be profit taking after a very strong performance so far this year.
Given the growth of the industry to date, we maintain the forecast we made at the end of 2016 and expect total industry FuM at the end of 2017 to be in the range of $32-$35B. Given current growth trajectory, we expect the industry will end up at the upper end of this range.