ETFs See Losses in January

The S&P 500 Index fell 3.6% in January and the MSCI EAFE Index fell 4.4% for the month in U.S. dollar terms. Both the Barclays Capital U.S. Treasury Index and the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Index rose 1.6%. Gold fell to $1078.50 an ounce, a loss of 0.8% from last month’s close.

By asset class, nine of the 12 ETF sectors fell in absolute terms. Fixed Income assets climbed $3.2 billion, a gain of 3.2% for the month, the report said.

By size/style, 12 of the 13 categories fell in absolute terms, down $28.3 billion. The biggest loss was among large cap, at 15.4% for the month. The micro-cap market saw an increase of 0.5%. Value outperformed growth by nearly 2-to-1 in each size segment.

Losses were spread evenly among the ETF sectors for a cumulative loss of $4.4 billion. Three sectors fell more than 8%: Materials, Information Technology, and Telecommunications.

As of January 31, 840 ETFs in the U.S. with assets totaling approximately $730 billion were managed by 31 ETF managers. The top three managers in the U.S. ETF marketplace were BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard – collectively accounting for approximately 83.9% of the U.S.-listed ETF market.

The top three U.S. ETFs in terms of dollar volume traded for the month were: the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], PowerShares QQQ [QQQQ] and iShares Russell 2000 [IWM]. Average daily volume remained fairly stable at $60 billion.

The report can be downloaded from http://www.spdrs.com.