Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Big Money Flows Out of Index ETFs

"In the past five trading days, U.S. equity exchange-traded funds redeemed $5 billion ($997 million daily). Futures-related ETFs redeemed $6 billion, non-futures-related ETFs issued $2.6 billion and short ETFs issued $1.1 billion. ...

The leading redeemers were Spiders (amex: SPY), which redeemed $3.7 billion (5.4% of assets); iShares Russell 2000 (amex: IWM), which redeemed $2.1 billion (25.4% of assets); and PowerShares QQQ (nasdaq: QQQQ), which redeemed $1.2 billion (7.8% of assets). ...

Based on the flows of ETFs, which are traded mostly by institutional investors, portfolio managers are either betting heavily on further market declines or using ETFs to hedge long positions in other investment vehicles. Futures-related ETFs redeemed $6.1 billion (3.7% of assets) in the past week and $11.5 billion (6.9% of assets) in the past two weeks.

By contrast, short ETFs issued $1.1 billion (10.1% of assets) in the past week and $1.4 billion (12.5% of assets) in the past two weeks. " -read the full article here

1 comment:

tooquiet said...

After listening to Bernie & Boys today it sounds like the feds are thinking we are not in Kansas anymore.

Having to do the election year shuffle, Bernie's thinking that talking about another 1/2 pt drop in the rate might appease somebody...not that doing it will do anything either.

But the point is that they see the current situation as serious, and the subprime problem is rearing its ugly head(s) and is starting to bite.

I've been buying SPY puts but not holding them overnights due to the instability in the wedgie market, but I'm looking at getting shorter tomorrow. We'll see how it pans out with Freddie.