Concerns over Federal Reserve policy and economic growth prompted global investors to pull $15 billion from exchange-traded products in August, according to data released by BlackRock on Monday. This tops outflows of $13.4 billion in January 2010, the industry's previous record.
The August outflows also surpassed the $12 billion of redemptions made by investors in June. Plus, it marked a dramatic reversal from the nearly $44 billion of inflows investors made in July. (In August 2012, investors added $12 billion of flows to exchange-traded products.)
"Similar to June, outflows were driven by fixed income with -$5.3 billion, including -$8.1 billion from funds with longer/broader maturity profiles vs. inflows for short maturity funds," Dodd Kittsley and Raj Seshadri wrote.
Still, there were some bright spots. Nearly $5 billion flowed into pan-European equity ETPs in August.
U.S. equity products, however, experienced $14.5 billion in outflows, $14 billion of which were redeemed from the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).
Year to date, investors have added $128 billion of inflows to exchange-traded products, with equity ETPs dominating the pack. In the first eight months of 2012, though, overall ETP inflows were nearly $140 billion.
