European ETF Week 25: €9.78bn Flows, Korea Tops Returns

European-listed equity ETFs received €9.78bn in net inflows in week 25, covering June 15–19, according to data from Trackinsight. Fixed income ETFs added €2.15bn, commodity ETPs took in €689.0m, cryptocurrency products attracted €21.8m and multi-asset ETFs recorded €19.7m of outflows.

At the sector level, Financials drew the largest net purchases with €351.6m. Information Technology attracted €183.6m and Communication Services €105.4m. Industrials recorded the biggest sector outflow of €125.8m, while Energy and Utilities saw net redemptions of €88.4m and €48.7m respectively. Information Technology led sector performance, rising 5.21% for the week. Financials gained 4.10% and Materials rose 2.30%. Energy was the weakest major sector, down 5.71%.

Geographic flows favored US exposures, which captured €3.41bn. Global or World products took €1.69bn and Developed Markets ETFs added €1.16bn. Europe-focused ETFs added €866.9m and Japan-focused ETFs €825.2m. Emerging Markets funds recorded €532.6m of inflows. By country, South Korea attracted €212.8m, the UK €205.4m and Switzerland €126.3m, while Hong Kong and Spain saw outflows of €105.0m and €70.0m. South Korea posted the strongest weekly return among highlighted markets at 12.48%, followed by Developed Asia Pacific at 6.80% and Taiwan at 6.62%. Norway registered the weakest return at -4.85%.

Thematic ETF flows concentrated on data and technology strategies. Artificial Intelligence & Big Data led thematic inflows with €168.1m. Space & Deep Sea, Smart City, Strategic Metals and Disruptive Technology also recorded positive net flows. Net Zero 2050 posted the largest thematic outflow at €654.8m, while Alternative Energy and Global Defense recorded notable redemptions. BioTech & Genomics was the top-performing theme, up 7.42%, followed by Nuclear Energy at 7.00% and Artificial Intelligence & Big Data at 5.44%.

Within fixed income, Corporate Investment Grade ETFs were top by inflows at €1.09bn. Corporate High Yield products added €467.9m and Government Investment Grade ETFs drew €376.2m. In commodities, gold ETPs attracted €779.5m, while silver and other metals saw smaller purchases. Agriculture and multi-commodity exposures recorded outflows. In crypto ETPs, Bitcoin products led with €27.5m of inflows and Ether gathered €4.6m; several smaller crypto products showed net outflows.

Issuer flows were led by iShares, which recorded €4.06bn of net inflows for the week. Vanguard took €1.92bn, Xtrackers €1.84bn and State Street €1.61bn. Amundi, Invesco, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Franklin Templeton and J.P. Morgan also posted positive net inflows. Among individual ETFs, the Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF received €736.8m, the Amundi Core S&P 500 Swap UCITS ETF €512.7m and the iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF €380.6m in net inflows.

Top-performing equity ETFs for the week included a China STAR-board index fund that returned 15.63% and several Korea-focused ETFs with double-digit gains, including a Franklin FTSE Korea ETF at 13.35% and an Invesco ChiNext 50 ETF at 11.89%. Energy storage, hydrogen and genomics equity funds also featured among the best performers.

The Trackinsight weekly snapshot provides the data on flows and short-term returns for European-listed ETFs for the period June 15–19.