Weekly ETF Outflows Total $19B

Talk about a U-turn. After registering their strongest month of inflows on record in January, ETFs started February with a monster outflow. Almost $19 billion came out of U.S.-listed ETFs during the week ending Thursday, Feb. 8, as Wall Street witnessed its steepest sell-off in nearly two years. Year-to-date inflows are still positive, but fell to $51.9 billion.

The data, which comes from FactSet, showed that U.S. equity ETFs had outflows of $21.8 billion during the week. The S&P 500 plunged throughout the period, falling into the red for the year. The index was down as much as 11.6% from its all-time high on Friday.

The vast majority of this week’s equity ETF outflows came from one fund: the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). SPY’s $17.5 billion worth of weekly outflows were far and ahead of the rest of the pack. The next-biggest outflows came from the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA), with $2 billion.

Yields Rise
The iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD), the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK) and the iShares JP Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMB) followed suit, with outflows of more than $1 billion each.

Despite outflows from those three products, fixed-income ETFs as a whole registered a modest inflow. The U.S. 10-year Treasury bond increased, and yields fell week-over-week by about 4 basis points to last trade at 2.81% after challenging four-year highs of 2.88% on Monday and Thursday. Despite this week’s slight decline, yields continue to face upward pressure amid expectations of rising inflation and more Fed hikes.

Indeed, it’s notable that Treasury yields didn’t fall all that much even as stocks fell steeply.

IVV Picks Up Assets

Even amid this week’s negative tone in markets, there were a handful of ETFs that garnered notable inflows. The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) picked up $1.9 billion. At the same time, the iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA) had inflows of $1.7 billion.

International equity ETFs as a whole saw inflows of $827 million, a sharp contrast to the outflows seen in U.S. equity ETFs.

Finally, the ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (SVXY) took in a whopping $1.6 billion during the week. Prices for the ETF plunged from $106 last week to $10 this Friday, a decline of more than 90%, as an unprecedented surge in VIX futures devastated the value of the fund.

The rival VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV), which was similarly hammered, is set to shut down later this month. SVXY will continue trading, and judging by the latest inflows, plenty of investors are happy to continue buying it, despite this week’s turmoil in the fund.

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

Follow Sumit Roy on Twitter @sumitroy2

Top 10 Creations (All ETFs)

Top 10 Redemptions (All ETFs)

ETF Weekly Flows By Asset Class

Top 10 Volume Surprises, Funds >$50 mm AUM

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.