Canada’s ETF industry reported inflows of $16.2 billion in August, a report from National Bank Capital Markets (NBCM) shows.
Released earlier this month, the report said this marks the 10th consecutive month where ETF inflows have topped $13 billion.
By comparison, Canada-listed ETFs gathered $18.2 billion in July.
A large chunk of August’s creations — $10.5 billion — flowed into equity funds. That’s down from $12.5 billion in July.
On a regional basis, international equity ETFs attracted $5.4 billion in August, followed by U.S. equity ETFs at $3 billion and Canadian equity ETFs at $2.1 billion.
By sector, financial equity funds took in the most at $507 million, followed by materials at $495 million, utilities at $377 million, “other” sector-based funds at $177 million, technology at $86 million, energy at $16 million and real estate at $1 million. Health-care ETFs reported outflows of $2 million.
By focus, cap-weighted equity ETFs were the most popular in August, raking in $4.3 billion.
Fixed-income ETFs gathered $4.7 billion in inflows, up from $2.9 billion a month prior.
By fixed-income fund type, Canada aggregate bond ETFs led the way with inflows of $1.7 billion. Next in line were Canada corporate bond funds at $965 million, sub-investment-grade bond funds at $556 million, foreign bond funds at $525 million, money-market funds at $464 million, Canada government bond funds at $210 million, U.S./North American bond funds at $156 million and preferred/convertible bond funds at $147 million.
By maturity, the broad/mixed bond fund category recorded the most investment dollars with $2.8 billion gathered.
Commodity ETFs suffered redemptions of $660 million in the month, “concentrated in gold bullion, even as gold miner exposure drew inflows,” the report said. This was a decline from July’s inflows of $107 million.
Multi-asset ETFs gathered $1.1 billion, down from $1.6 billion the previous month.
Leveraged and inverse-leveraged ETFs reported inflows of $533 million, down from $1 billion.
Crypto-asset ETFs pulled in $11 million, up from the previous month’s outflows of $2 million.
ESG ETFs “saw a pickup in August, with net inflows of $712 million in August,” up from $120 million a month earlier, NBCM said. Flows in the category were concentrated in funds with emerging markets and environment exposures.
There were also 16 new ETF launches across eight providers in August, pushing the total number of ETFs listed in Canada above 2,000. While this is “a healthy handful,” the report noted that it represents “a slowdown relative to the wave of launches we’ve observed over the year.”
Among the launches were the Caldwell-Lazard CorePlus Infrastructure Fund, the first ETF listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange, along with new products from RBC iShares, BMO Asset Management Inc. and Evolve ETFs.
Total ETF assets under management reached $921.6 billion at the end of August.