U.S. ETF Flows Set a Fresh Record in 2014

While equity funds received the strongest flows in absolute dollar terms, bond funds had stronger flows relative to their size. Taxable-bond ETFs were likely a beneficiary of Bill Gross’ decision to leave PIMCO. Outflows from PIMCO Total Return (PTTRX) totaled US$103 billion in 2014, and some of that money likely found its way to Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND) and iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond (AGG). Index funds are often used during management transition to maintain market exposure after an investor leaves an active manager but has yet to select a new active manager. Gross’ departure highlighted the manager risk that active-fund investors face. In addition to AGG, which tracks the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, iShares saw strong inflows to several of its more-targeted bond ETFs, such as iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT) and iShares iBoxx US$ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD).

At the firm level, iShares wrested the flows crown from Vanguard, attracting US$82 billion compared with Vanguard’s US$76 billion. Yet Vanguard continued to take market share from both iShares and State Street. Of the three largest ETF providers, Vanguard is the only one that has been able to increase market share during the past three years. This comes despite efforts by both iShares and State Street to reduce fees and launch new products. While iShares has had some success with its “Core” series of low-cost ETFs, growth has not come fast enough to maintain market share. In addition, some new funds may have cannibalized assets at existing products. For example, the relatively new iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets (IEMG) attracted US$3 billion, yet the similar but more expensive iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) lost US$5 billion to outflows. iShares has launched 97 funds in the past three years, of which 41 have garnered more than US$50 million in assets. State Street has made significant cuts to expense ratios on several funds, yet it too has lost market share. For example, the firm cut the expense ratio on  SPDR Russell 3000 ETF (THRK) to just 0.10% in 2013, but the fund actually had outflows in 2014. Just eight of the 39 ETFs that State Street has launched during the last three years have more than US$50 million in assets.

Outside of the big three ETF issuers, First Trust and Schwab were big winners again in 2014. While they both enjoyed success, their ETF lineups are quite a bit different. First Trust ETFs are generally high-cost (by ETF standards) strategic-beta funds, many of which have a sector or niche focus. In contrast, Schwab’s funds tend to be plain-vanilla market-cap-weighted portfolios and are typically the lowest cost in their respective categories. The success of both firms is largely due to their adoption by advisors. For Schwab, it is the advisors using the firm’s brokerage platform, while First Trust has seen strong flows from both independent and wirehouse financial advisors, as well as ETF managed-portfolio providers such as F-Squared.

Despite a 19.1% return, PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) had the largest outflows of any ETF in 2014, shedding US$11 billion. The fund is PowerShares’ largest, accounting for 42% of its assets in exchange-traded products.

In 2014, strategic-beta ETFs, which combine elements of both passive and active investing, were also a winner. Assets in strategic-beta ETFs hit US$402 billion and had inflows relative to assets of 19% compared with 13% for non-strategic-beta ETFs.