Australia’s ETF industry has recorded its highest ever trading value in October, with $3.9 billion in value traded according to the BetaShares Australian ETF Review – October 2018.
Dramatic sharemarket falls caused the Australian ETF industry to drop 3.2% in October (equating to $1.3 billion), lowering total FUM to $40.8 billion. Impressively, however, net flows into the industry were positive, with the industry taking in ~$760 million of new money.
For the first time in 2018, Australian equities were the largest category for inflows, attracting over $369 million, although this was largely swayed by institutional flows into several broad market local equities products, including BetaShares’ A200 ETF. This was followed by International Equities, receiving over $164 million.
Commenting on the month’s activity, BetaShares CEO, Alex Vynokur, said: “We are starting to see a trend emerging, much like the more mature and developed U.S. ETF industry, of Australian investors utilising the liquidity benefits of ETFs during times of market volatility, with ETFs being effective and easy ways to express investment views in such times.”
Two new products were launched during the month, bringing the total number of Exchange Traded Products trading on the ASX to 243.