Ilan Israelstam
3 minutes reading time
MARCH 2022: INDUSTRY RETURNS TO GROWTH AS MARKET REBOUNDS
After two straight months of negative growth, the Australian ETF industry regained its growth trajectory in the month of March, as sharemarkets rebounded strongly. Read on for details, including best performers, asset flow categories and more.
Australian ETP Market Cap: July 2001 – March 2022
Source: ASX, Chi-X, BetaShares.
Market cap
- Australian Exchange Traded Funds Market Cap: $135.4B
- Market cap increase for month: 4.1%, $5.3B
- Market cap growth for the last 12 months: 31.6%, + $32.5B
Comment: The industry grew 4.1% ($5.3B) month on month and ended March at $135.4B, a touch shy of the highs recorded in December ($136.9B).
New money
- Net flows for month: +$1.3B
Comment: Along with asset value increases, we also saw ETF investors return with more confidence to the market, with net inflows of $1.3B for the month (25% of total monthly industry growth). While this is significantly more than very anaemic flows of February ($212m) the inflow figure is still relatively low compared to average net flow figures over the last 12 months (12 month average is $1.8B/monthly), indicating that investor caution is still very much present.
Products
- 297 Exchange Traded Products trading on the ASX
- 3 new products launched – we launched a new thematic ETF, our Digital Healthcare and Telemedicine Product (ASX: EDOC). In addition, two Active ETFs were launched, Janus Henderson launched a global equities fund focus on ‘achieving net zero’ and Nanuk converted their unlisted fund into an open class structure.
- 1 single bond product matured
Trading value
- ASX ETF Trading value increased 12% month on month to reach $11.4B, the second highest trading value on record
Comment: As market volatility continued, trading values remained very high, with ASX ETF trading value reaching $11.4B, the second highest monthly level on record.
Performance
- Best performance in March was our Geared Australian Shares Fund (ASX: GEAR) which returned a very significant 15.9% for the month followed by Australian resources ETFs.
Comment: Industry growth over the last 12 months has been 34%, for a total of $32.8B net growth.
Top 5 Category inflows (by $) – March 2022
| Category | Inflow Value |
| International Equities | $714,864,109 |
| Australian Equities | $379,561,494 |
| Fixed Income | $375,461,765 |
| Multi-Asset | $99,515,307 |
| Listed Property | $80,983,210 |
Top 5 Category outflows (by $) – March 2022
| Category | Inflow Value |
| Cash | ($478,638,772) |
| Currency | ($15,130,320) |
Source: Bloomberg, BetaShares.
Top Sub-Category inflows (by $) – March 2022
| Sub-Category | Inflow Value |
| Australian Equities – Broad | $296,137,156 |
| International Equities – Developed World | $233,050,513 |
| Australian Bonds | $205,441,690 |
| Global Bonds | $170,020,076 |
| International Equities – US | $144,965,703 |
Comment: In terms of category flows, the industry returned to a more traditional pattern, with international equities ETFs receiving the highest level of flows ($714m), followed by Australian equities. That said, at a sub-category level, broad Australian equities exposures received the highest level of inflows, with Australian equities apparently continued to be favoured over international equities, mirroring their overall better relative performance.
Top Sub-Category outflows (by $) – March 2022
| Sub-Category | Inflow Value |
| Cash | ($478,638,772) |
| Australian Equities – Ethical | ($31,026,685) |
| Oil | ($24,967,848) |
| Australian Equities – Geared | ($15,407,124) |
| Currency | ($15,130,320) |
