U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds focused on the real estate and utilities sectors saw net outflows during the first four days of last week while cryptocurrency-themed exchange-traded products attracted investor cash despite U.S. regulators' tightening grip on that sector, Trackinsight said in a report March 24.
The 45 real estate ETFs with assets totaling $59.7 billion that Trackinsight follows were down an average of 3.38% and saw $253.6 million of net outflows during the four-day period from March 20 to March 23, the report by the global ETF data provider said.
Year to date through March 23, the real estate ETFs Trackinsight monitors have seen $2.17 billion of net outflows, the report showed.
The decline in the real estate ETF market was driven by the poor performance of prominent companies like Equinix, Public Storage, American Tower Corp. and Crown Castle, whose stock prices declined from 3.5% to 5.0% during that four-day period, the report said.
"On Friday, real estate investment trusts (REITs) bounced back following a continuous drop over the past weeks that led some of those securities close to their 2023 low and became more attractive from a technical analysis point of view," said Trackinsight CEO Philippe Malaise in comments emailed to Pensions & Investments Monday. "As a result, it likely triggered some investors to buy in to take the opportunity of those lows and erased some of the losses for the week."
Real estate ETFs weren't the four-day period's worst performers, however, the report said.
"The utilities sector was the week's poorest sector … as investors were shunning safe haven stocks," the report said.
The nine utilities sector ETFs with assets totaling $23.2 billion that Trackinsight follows were down an average of about 4% and had net outflows totaling $81.6 million during the four-day period last week. Utilities sector ETFs have seen net outflows totaling $210.8 million this year through March 23, the report said.
By contrast, the 12 cryptocurrency-themed ETPs with assets totaling $1.16 billion that Trackinsight monitors were up an average of 5.6% for the four-day period and recorded $49.7 million of inflows. Year to date through March 23, cryptocurrency-themed ETPs have gathered $59.5 million of net inflows, the report said.
"Though U.S. regulators are tightening their grip on the crypto sector, cryptocurrency prices remained close to their year high," the report said.
