The global ETF market saw EUR 426 billion of inflows in 2018 with December comprising of EUR 68 billion of that figure.

This is according to Amundi’s monthly ETF market flow report. 

On a global ETF market basis, EUR 304 billion of inflows went in to equities and EUR 119 billion in to bonds. 

The US market enjoyed EUR 314 billion of inflows over the year and EUR 52.6 billion of inflows in December.

However, December was a bad month for both US and European equities in the European market, as they both saw outflows of EUR 1.9 billion and EUR 1.4 billion respectively.

The entire year in the European market saw in total EUR 29.5 billion of inflows for European equities and EUR 17.3 billion of inflows for US equities.

The European market’s end of last year painted a better picture for Emerging Markets (EM) equities as exposure to the asset class was on the rise with EUR 2.8 billion of inflows in December.

According to Amundi “Sectorial and smart beta ETFs suffered from investor arbitrage in December with EUR 1.3 billion of outflows, but overall, they were popular among European investors in 2018 with inflows of EUR4.7 billion.”

Bond ETFs within the European market saw EUR 3.6 billion of inflows in December and EUR 14 billion for the whole of 2018.

EM debt witnessed EUR 1 billion of inflows in December in the European market. Amundi believes “December looked like a snapshot of the year as a whole: investors focused on sovereign bonds at the expense of corporate debt.”

Amundi is Europe’s largest asset manager with EUR 1.47 trillion in assets under management.