The ETF Industry is Losing Assets Quickly

by Jim Wiandt

I have the best table I've seen in a long time for you ETF data lovers.

The ETF industry is down big-time in assets so far this year - dropping from a peak in assets of around $625 billion, to a level that now is around $560 billion, and it's NOT all about assets looking lower as the stock market slides, though it probably IS all about the market sliding and people cashing out.

There have been some big redemptions across the golden-boy ETF industry in just the last couple of months, and looking at the breakdown, as well as the snapshot of where all the different players in the industry stands, is absolutely fascinating. Talk about being in the right place at the right time for ProShares, which continues to be a rocket ship.

Thanks as always to our resident ETF whiz, Matt Hougan, who has compiled all of this data. I'll just lay it out here for you to gaze upon, forward, etc. To me, reviewing this kind of thing is about as good as it gets. This industry is moving fast.

The data is as of February 22, 2008, and the time period for increase/decrease in assets is December 28, 2007 through February 22, 2008.

U.S. ETF FAMILY ASSETS

Family	Creation Value	Change in Net Assets	Total Net Assets
ProShares	4,143,721,500	4,966,116,830	14,596,089,350
Vanguard	3,699,370,587	258,640,737	42,317,875,751
Van Eck	1,525,951,000	1,540,411,750	4,940,670,325
HOLDRS	831,302,808	251,473,688	7,403,359,563
Claymore	118,296,000	(35,854,032)	1,859,906,620
First Trust	29,793,500	(79,854,914)	926,159,375
GreenHaven	17,030,000	17,030,000	17,030,000
Revenueshares	15,066,734	15,066,734	15,066,734
MACRO	10,020,000	10,125,000	70,140,000
Fidelity	9,030,000	(6,953,000)	108,360,000
SPA	8,316,000	6,934,820	20,851,758
Xshares	7,783,000	(10,278,108)	245,259,088
Ameristock	-	297,360	13,160,448
FocusShares	-	(446,656)	23,069,757
Ziegler	(2,365,000)	(3,219,240)	4,824,600
WisdomTree	(44,530,000)	(417,014,500)	4,136,208,500
PowerShares	(85,588,600)	(4,830,309,766)	36,112,472,726
Rydex	(251,326,774)	(368,406,865)	5,172,285,250
Victoria Bay	(386,371,000)	(245,771,000)	837,632,000
BGI	(3,211,866,750)	(26,945,603,350)	305,400,058,000
SSgA	(24,299,985,496)	(35,561,723,268)	137,510,804,937
INDUSTRY-WIDE	(17,866,352,491)	(61,439,337,780)	561,731,284,782

12/28/2007 - 2/22/2008

Comments

[whidbey]

Too much of a good thing? Or, nothing goes straight up? Or, everything else is slow, why not ETFs as well. Not news, really!