‘BUZZ’ Adds To Solid Weekly ETF Inflows

Growth stocks were pummeled this week, but the blood bath in individual names didn’t show up in ETF flows. On net, investors added to their ETF holdings, focusing their buying power on broad market stock and bond funds.

U.S. equity ETFs, international equity ETFs and U.S. fixed income ETFs picked up $3.3 billion, $5.9 billion and $3.8 billion in weekly inflows, respectively, powering overall U.S.-listed ETFs inflows to $12.5 billion.

Year-to-date inflows now stand at $164.9 billion, compared with $86.9 billion at this same time a year ago.

‘BUZZ’-iest ETF Of The Week

Even though plain vanilla ETFs were the biggest flows winner of the week, investors still had an appetite for risk. They scooped up the newly minted VanEck Vectors Social Sentiment ETF (BUZZ), which is backed by Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy.

In its first session, the fund traded 18.2 million shares and collected more than $280 million of fresh cash.

According to issuer VanEck, BUZZ tracks “the performance of the 75 large cap U.S. stocks which exhibit the highest degree of positive investor sentiment and bullish perception based on content aggregated from online sources including social media, news articles, blog posts and other alternative datasets.”

BUZZ is cashing in on the current investor zeitgeist, where hordes of retail investors seek to profit by sharing stock tips on message boards and other social media. The ETF’s current top holdings include Ford, DraftKings, Twitter, Facebook and American Airlines.

Notably missing from the portfolio is GameStop, the retail video game store that became the darling of the WallStreetBets subreddit and captured national headlines for a few weeks earlier this year.

(Use our stock finder tool to find an ETF’s allocation to a certain stock.)

‘QQQ’ Sheds Assets

In addition to BUZZ, other ETFs to see inflows this week included the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO), the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) and the iShares Core Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG).

International equity ETFs remain the most in-demand segment among ETF investors this year.

Meanwhile, on the outflows side of the ledger, the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) had the largest redemptions of the week—unsurprising considering the battering that technology and biotechnology stocks took during the period.

For a full list of this week’s top inflows and outflows, see the tables below:

Top 10 Creations (All ETFs)

Top 10 Redemptions (All ETFs)

ETF Weekly Flows By Asset Class

Asset Classes (Year-to-Date)

Disclaimer: All data as of 6 a.m. Eastern time the date the article is published. Data is believed to be accurate; however, transient market data is often subject to subsequent revision and correction by the exchanges.