New data highlights the continued strength of exchange-traded funds industry
Canada’s ETFs industry continues to make headlines with new records being set as investors pour money into an increasing array of fund options.
Following the IFIC data published a few weeks ago revealing that Canadian ETF sales soared to third best month ever in October, a new report from research and consultancy firm ETFGI shows further gains in November and some impressive year-to-date stats.
The firm says that net inflows of US$7.5 billion were achieved in November, which would be a decrease from the C$8.1 billion reported in IFIC’s October report, but still an impressive month that builds on the gains of 2024 so far and marks the 29th consecutive month of net inflows.
Equity ETFs contributed net inflows of $4.7 billion, while fixed income saw net outflows of $12.7 million and crypto ETFs posted net outflows of $4.4 million. Active ETFs attracted net inflows of $2.6 billion during the month.
Deborah Fuhr, managing partner, founder, and owner of ETFGI, explained where the gains were for equities.
“The S&P 500 index increased by 5.87% in November and is up 28.07% YTD in 2024. The developed markets excluding the US index increased by 0.11% in November and is up 6.77% YTD in 2024. Israel (up 8.86%) and US (up 6.46%) saw the largest increases amongst the developed markets in November,” she said. “The emerging markets index decreased by 2.77% during November but is up 11.75% YTD in 2024. Indonesia (down 6.17%) and Philippines (down 6.05%) saw the largest decreases amongst emerging markets in November.”
Year to date
ETFGI’s year-to-date net inflows total of US$55.4 billion by the end of November is a new record, easily beating the previous record of $42.6 billion for the first 11 months of 2021, and more than double the $28.3 billion for that period of 2023.
There was also a new record for total assets in the Canadian ETF industry, with a 29.1% increase since the end of 2023 taking the total to $404.6 billion and surpassing the previous record high of $388.7 billion at the end of September 2024.
At the end of November, the ETFs industry in Canada had 1,233 ETFs, with 1,541 listings from 45 providers listed on 2 exchanges.
The top 20 ETFs by net new assets in November were led by iShares Core S&P/TSX Composite Index ETF, BMO S&P 500 Index ETF, and BMO Equal Weight Banks Index ETF. The top 20 contributed $4.6 billion during November.
