On The Fly: ETF fund flow highlights

For the week flows in the top twenty volume ETFs were very heavy and skewed by a factor of 4.17 to 1 to creations per data from ETF.com. The single largest inflow was to the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) at over 42% of creations. Overall flows to S&P 500 index and sector funds was an additional 13% of inflows. But there was a surprise this week in that the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) saw its largest flow in many months, at over 22% of creations. This coincided with continued outperformance of the small caps in the past week against large and mega-caps. Although the flows were not especially large compared to equity flows, the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK) saw its first sizeable creation in some time. In sum, flows were suggestive of the risk on trade accelerating after months of languishing. On the redemptions side, the primary competitor of stocks for many months, bonds, saw notable outflows as interest rates rose. In addition, high-yielding equity also saw a notable outflow for the first time in many months as well. The key funds were iShares JP Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMB), UBS AG FI Enhanced Global High Yield ETN (FIHD), and iShares Short Treasury Bond ETF (SHV).