Aussie ETF industry up in October

Oksana Patron

17 November 2022

The Australian exchange traded fund (ETF) industry’s assets under management (AUM) grew 5.9% to $131.7 billion at the end of October, which was still $5 billion off the peak level compared to $136.9 billion in December a year ago.

According to BetaShares Australian ETF Review, the sharemarket rise contributed the bulk of the industry growth in October, with 20% of the growth attributable to net flows (net new money), which were relatively robust at $1.5 billion.

At the same time, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) ETF trading value increased 17% month on month for a total of $10.7 billion.

Following this, industry growth over the last 12 months returned to being positive, with an increase of 3.7% year on year, or $4.8 billion.

The market also recorded net inflows in all major asset classes, with the composition of the flows being quite balanced while Australian Equities was the category with the highest flows at $417 million, but there were also strong flows into cash, global equities and fixed income as well ($396 million, $369 million and $308 million respectively).

Overall net flows at a category level were muted, and largely confined to selling in short exposures, particularly the short Nasdaq 100 fund, according to the report.

October was also a big month as far as the new product development was concerned, with eight new products launched, and new passive products from Global X and Van Eck.

“We also saw three new active ETF issuers join the industry: Abrdn, Hejaz and Firetrail.

But Cosmos delisted their Crypto Equities fund, DIGA from CBOE, with their two other cryptocurrency ETFs expected to delist in November.

“With sharemarkets rallying strongly, the Geared US Equity Fund (GGUS) topped the charts for performance this month, returning 18.8%, followed by our Global Energy Companies ETF (FUEL) at 14.4%,” the report said.