ETP Landscape Industry Highlights, Q1 2012

The first quarter of 2012 marked the best ever start to a year for the Exchange Traded Products (ETP) industry, according to BlackRock’s latest ETP Landscape Report, as investors continued to return to the market and selected ETPs to invest in a range of asset classes.

The ETP industry gathered net new assets of $67.3bn during Q1 2012, representing an increase of 50% on Q4 2011 when net new assets stood at $44.8bn, and an increase of 57% on the $42.8bn of inflows recorded in Q1 2011.

Investor interest in fixed income ETPs also hit new highs during the quarter. Fixed income products attracted inflows of $19.5bn, eclipsing the previous quarterly record of $14.7bn set in Q4 2011, and accounted for 29% of all inflows into ETPs globally. Within the asset class, investors showed a clear preference for investment grade and high yield corporate bonds, with these two categories accounting for 85%, or $16.5bn of total fixed income inflows.

BlackRock is a global leader in ETPs and publishes research on the industry through the ETP Landscape series of market commentaries.