Less Put Into ETFs

Canadians put less money into ETFs last month amid selloffs in both equities and bond markets, says a report from National Bank Financial. Just over $1.5 billion flowed into Canadian ETFs in April, a sharp decline after inflows of $13.5 billion over the first three months of the year. Equity ETFs still attracted the lion’s share ??? $917 million ??? but that was down from $2.5 billion in March. Investors were understandably reticent after a volatile start to the year got worse in April. The S&P 500 dropped by 8.8 per cent for its worst month since the start of the pandemic, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite had its biggest monthly drop since the 2008 financial crisis. The S&P/TSX composite ended its fifth straight month of declines with a 5.4 per cent drop in April. Bond ETFs attracted $645 million “even as the broad fixed income market has rarely seemed more challenging,” the report says. Despite the declines, Canadian aggregate bond indexes led the way with $678 million in new money. Cryptoasset ETFs had their worst month since the first funds were launched in February 2021 as $338 million flowed out from Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in April, a figure that represents 5.5 per cent of the category’s starting assets.