Fund flow analysis: Global ETFs

Fund flow statistics are extremely helpful in understanding investor sentiment towards different sections of financial markets. Latest fund flow statistics available, for the week ending 22nd March, from ETF.com, point to further improvement in risk appetite, but latest improvement is more discrete and it also points to bit of cautious approach in the market.

Inflows 

• iShares MSCI emerging markets registered biggest inflow amounting to $913.4 million, which indicates sentiment further improvements in sentiment towards emerging market.
• Next in lines are iShares Select Dividend ($669.8 million), iShares S&P 500 core ($616.5 million) and Power shares S&P 500 quality ($393.8million), which clearly indicate investors having appetite for equities but being selective.
• SPDR Gold ETF ranked fourth in terms of inflows, with $587.2 million, shows some cautious approach by investors.

Outflows 

• SPDR S&P 500 saw biggest outflow of $4.06 billion, indicating lack of appetite for broad based equities. Outflows from iShares Russell 2000 (-$609.4 million) indicate the same.
• Healthcare is clearly out of touch as two health care funds, Health Care Select SPDR (-$328.4 million) and First Trust Health care AlphaDex (-$312.8 million) rank among top five in terms of outflows.
• iShares Short Treasury bonds also suffered outflows in tune of -$430.1 million, which indicates investors expect Yields to drop, possibly due to dovish FOMC last week.