The use of exchange-traded funds (ETF) by SMSF investors is currently strong and will continue to grow going forward, an ETF issuer has said.
“A significant proportion of ETF inflows continue to come from SMSF investors,” BetaShares managing director Alex Vynokur told selfmanagedsuper.
“Our recent BetaShares/Investment Trends ETF survey showed that over 40 per cent of individual investors are investing via their SMSF, with the number of SMSF investors growing 30 per cent each year.
“At present there are over 80,000 SMSFs actively using ETFs and we expect this number to continue to grow as ETFs continue to gather mainstream acceptance.”
Vynokur’s comments follow the release of the latest “BetaShares Australian ETF Review”, which revealed the local ETF industry hit a new all-time high of $24.1 billion in funds under management (FUM) in September.
FUM grew by 2 per cent, $530 million, with the Australian ETF industry receiving $580 million of inflows for the month.
Over the course of the month, the local share market remained flat and global share markets fell.
As such, all of the growth could be attributed to new money rather than asset value growth, making the industry growth in September all the more impressive, the report said.
Broad Australian equities exposures received the highest flows for the month, with net inflows of $250 million, followed by Australian fixed income, which experienced net inflows of $124 million.
“This month saw Australian investors continue to add local exposures to their portfolios,” Vynokur noted.
“Australian fixed income, in particular, is a category which has really broken out from a growth perspective in 2016.
“ETFs now give investors a broad range of investment choices and therefore the ability to construct balanced portfolios entirely out of ETFs.
“The outperformance of commodities over equities in September highlights the benefits of diversified asset allocation in investors’ portfolios to help position for a variety of market conditions.”
Only one new fund was launched in September, the BetaShares Global Cybersecurity ETF.
