The Most Popular ETFs So Far In 2015

The top 10 ETFs in terms of asset growth were all in European, global and U.S. equities despite negative performance

Rachael Revesz

Editor, etf.com Europe

Oct 07, 2015

Reviewed by: Rachael Revesz

Edited by: Rachael Revesz

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In the face of a choppy third quarter exchange traded fund (ETF) flows have continued to defy gravity and poured into European, global and U.S. equities year-to-date, despite the top 10 most popular funds all delivering negative performance since 1 January.
Data house Markit found the top 10 ETFs in Europe have gathered £11.45 billion to 2 October this year. European equities gathered the most in the top 10 list at £6.21 billion between four ETFs, with U.S. equities gaining £2.7 billion in the same timeframe between two ETFs.
However, all of these funds delivered minus returns since the start of 2015. The number one ETF, the iShares Euro Stoxx 50 UCITS ETF, gave negative price returns of 7.2 percent, while the third spot, the iShares S&P 500 UCITS ETF, fell by more than 5 percent.
A surprising entrant on the Markit list was the iShares $ High Yield Corporate Bond UCITS ETF, which saw £963 million inflows to 2 October. This fund also fell around 5 percent in price terms since 1 January.
Markit data published yesterday found that the majority of Europe-listed and global ETFs were in the red year-to-date after capital markets went into freefall on 24 August, but there were a handful of winners in the healthcare, consumer discretionary sectors and Italian equities.
But the challenge in picking winners hasn’t deterred investors from ETFs overall. Figures from ETGI last month showed that Europe ETFs gathered $11.45 (£7.4) billion in August, hitting its third highest ever amount of monthly net inflows.
But investors have more recently switched out of U.S. equities as they believe the U.S. stock market has reached its peak. In fact HSBC Global Asset Management and Vanguard have suffered in 2015, having their major offering in this area, with the former ETF provider shedding around £476 million so far, according to Deutsche Bank data.
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No.	ETF	YTD Asset Flows (GBP)
1	iShares EURO STOXX 50 UCITS ETF (DE)	1,886,521,800.08
2	iShares MSCI World UCITS ETF (Acc)	1,547,672,697.82
3	iShares S&P 500 - B UCITS ETF (Acc)	1,376,519,066.24
4	Vanguard S&P 500 ETF	1,351,656,521.19
5	db x-trackers DAX UCITS ETF 1C (DR)	1,173,098,911.39
6	Lyxor UCITS ETF EURO STOXX 50	1,115,954,556.13
7	iShares STOXX Europe 600 UCITS ETF (DE)	1,098,614,707.35
8	iShares $ High Yield Corporate Bond UCITS ETF	963,440,151.74
9	db x-trackers EURO STOXX 50 UCITS ETF 1C (DR)	937,122,254.77
10	UBS ETF -MSCI EMU 100 hedged to USD UCITS ETF (USD) A-acc	875,334,089.81

Rachael Revesz

Rachael Revesz joined etf.com in August 2013 as staff writer. Previously an investment reporter at Citywire, she has a background in writing content for retail financial advisors and has covered a wide range of subjects in finance. Revesz studied journalism at PMA Media, which has since merged with the Press Association. She also holds a B.A. in modern languages from Durham University, as well as CF1 and CF2 financial planning certificates from the CII.

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