Assets in exchange traded funds rose by more than $5 billion between September and October as equity markets rebounded slightly, the fund industrys chief representative group said today.
The Investment Company Institute said that assets in ETFs, or funds that are offered by an investment company that trade at market prices on exchanges, increased by $5.08 billion, with domestic ETF assets rising $4.77 billion. International ETF assets increased by $304 million, the organization said.
Chris Wloszczyna, an ICI spokesman, said the increases were likely due to the markets appreciation during October.
But the value of shares issued exceeded that of those redeemed by only $861 million dollars, roughly half the value in September when ETFs posted net issuances of about $1.7 billion. Its possible that ETFs are mirroring the fund industry in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Wloszczyna said, when mutual fund redemptions were consistent with those of past months but the pace of new investments slowed to a crawl causing net outflows.
In the case of ETFs, investors may not be redeeming their shares so much as they have stopped buying new shares, he said.
