Some fun facts about fund flow to ETFs in the half-year ended in June 2020.

Here are some interesting tidbits on ETF flows in H12020:

More ETFs closed than opened – for the first time ever

Data compiled by Toroso Investments shows that while 218 ETF’s were opened in 2020, 231 downed shutters. It was always the other way round, with more opening than closing down.

According to Dan Weiskopf, a portfolio manager at Toroso, declining fees and competition from too many similar funds were the underlying causes for more funds shutting down. (Investing.com)

Gold ETFs are raking it in

Global net inflows into gold ETFs in the first half of 2020 reached a record of $ 39.5 billion, the World Gold Council said.

According to Juan Carlos Artigas, Head of Research, World Gold Council, investment demand for gold surged on safe-haven buying from investors. This was primarily due to the economic turmoil of COVID-19.

So are sustainable-investing funds

Figures from research provider ETF Flows show that inflows into investment products with an ESG focus, a.k.a sustainable investments, surged to more than $ 15 billion in the first half of this year.

Said veteran Dave Nadig on investors’ new-found love for ESG:  “The dam has broken. This is the year it came out of the backroom and became a reality.”

2019 was “an inflection point,” said Armando Senra, head of iShares Americas to MarketWatch. “There had been a lot of interest, but not necessarily flows.”

Investment giant BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) said Tuesday that ESG focused ETFs in iShares had scooped up $11 billion in 2020 so far, more than twice the amount of $5 billion raised in the full year of 2019.

Vanguard pulls ahead of Blackrock

According to Bloomberg, Vanguard Group ETFs hauled in $ 89 billion in the first half, leaving BlackRock, with an estimated $ 38 billion of inflows, far behind. In the corresponding period in 2019, BlackRock had led by $ 1.9 billion.

At the northern neighbor, it’s time to rewrite the record books

Canadian exchange-traded funds were deluged with C$22.4 billion of inflows in the first of 2020, more than double the amount in the first half of 2019.

“It’s the largest amount of new ETF money in a half-year calendar period in the past decade, making it “one for the history books,” said Daniel Straus, vice president of ETFs and financial products research at National Bank of Canada.

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