ETF Assets Grow $31 Billion in March

Assets in the U.S. ETF industry ended March at $482 billion, up $31 billion or 6.8%.

In the March ETF Snapshot report, State Street Global Advisors found that the biggest driver of growth were International ETFs with assets up $10 billion or 12.5%.  The growth in international was partially due to increasing price levels with the MSCI EAFE index up 6.4% in dollar terms.

Fixed income ETFs also grew nearly $5 billion or 8.2%.  That compares favorably to growth in the Barclays Capital U.S. Treasury Index (up 2.2%) and the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate index (up 1.4%).

The three largest ETFs in the U.S. are the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) at $59 billion, SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) at $33 billion and iShares MSCI EAFE (EFA) at $24 billion.