The Australian exchange traded fund industry hit a new record of $21.9 billion in total funds under management (FUM) during April. Reflective of both the recovery in the local equity market and the changes to interest rates, broad Australian equities and fixed income products received the highest level of inflows.

Market Size & Growth

• ASX Exchange Traded Funds Market Cap: $21.9B – New all-time record
• Market cap growth for month:  +2.4%, +$516m
• Market cap growth for last twelve months: 21.7%, +$3.9B

Comment: Total FUM increased $516 million (2.4%) on the previous month with half of the growth ($274 million) coming from new money.

New Money

• New unit growth for month (units outstanding by number): +1.0%
• Net new money (units outstanding by $ value): +$273.5m

Products

• 161 Exchange Traded Products trading on the ASX
• 2 new products launched this month

Comment:  For the first time this year, new products were launched, with two new MSCI World tracking ETFs launched. While the year has started slowly from a product development point of view, our belief is that the coming months will see a lot more new products being launched.

Trading Value

Average trading value decreased  -3% month on month

Performance

Best performers this month were commodities-related products: Gold Equities, Silver and Crude Oil exposures

Top 5 category inflows (by $) – April 2016

Comment: The inflows into short funds are always interesting and reflective of investment sentiment prevailing in the market – our BetaShares Bear Hedge Funds received $40m of inflows as investors sought to hedge their US and Australian equities investments. 

Top category outflows (by $) – April 2016

Despite the strong performance recorded in commodities exposures this month, this was the only category to record net outflows. Outflows to the value of $15m  were recorded from unhedged gold products.