ETF Assets Barely Budge

August 1, 2007

SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) - According to the Investment Company Institute (ICI), the combined assets of U.S. exchange-traded funds (ETFs) grew a modest $366 million to $485.88 billion in June.

While the June figures represented only narrow increase of 0.1% over May, the growing use of ETFs remains an intact trend. The year-over-year asset growth for ETFs  from June 2006 was a healthy 40.6 percent or $140.17 billion.

ETFs are an emerging class of index funds that trade like stocks.

The first batch of funds were introduced during the 90s and designed to track popular benchmark indexes such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq-100 and the S&P 500. Today, ETFs have expanded beyond traditional benchmarks to embrace indexes that are weighted equally and by market fundamentals.

Fixed income has been the fastest growing ETF segment this year. The number of funds tracking bond indexes was just 6 during the final quarter of 2006 and now rests at 32.

To date ETFs have experienced a net issuance of $31.70 billion.

The Investment Company Institute (ICI) is a national association of U.S. registered investment companies.