Assets in global ETFs totaled a record $13.4 trillion at the end of the third quarter, while net inflows into those funds during the quarter also set an all-time record, a Morningstar report released Oct. 10 showed.
Global ETF flows this year through Sept. 30 totaled $947 billion, Morningstar’s “Global ETF Flows Q3 2024” report said.
“With a full quarter remaining, ETFs are on track to eclipse USD 1 trillion in flows (this year), assuming no market disruptions,” said the report, authored by Syl Flood, senior product manager at Morningstar.
The current record for calendar-year global ETF net inflows is $1.2 trillion set in 2021, Flood said in an interview.
The $392 billion of flows during the third quarter topped the previous record for any quarter, which was set in third quarter 2021 with $333 billion, Flood confirmed.
“Remarkably, there has never been a negative quarter for flows since the beginning of Morningstar’s flows database in 2008,” the report said. “Monthly outflows have occurred only 10 times over that 201-month stretch.”
The $13.4 trillion of global ETF assets as of Sept. 30 represented an increase of $3.7 trillion from the end of September 2023, when global ETF assets totaled $9.7 trillion, Flood said in the interview.
Asked what was driving the growth in global ETF assets and flows, Flood said one factor was the continuing migration of money from traditional open-end mutual funds into ETFs. Another factor is that market sentiment “is still risk on,” he said.