If you expected the black swans of 2020 to upend financial markets and investing, there are probably plenty of examples that prove your thesis.
Fund flows to asset managers won’t be one of them.
Vanguard had a dismal showing in April — its smallest monthly inflow since July 2011 — but is still on top over the past 12 months. And it still manages more assets than its next three competitors combined.
That data comes from a report from research provider Morningstar, out Monday.
State Street Global Advisors had $16 billion of net long-term inflows, the most among fund families in absolute dollars. Of that, $5 billion went into the SPDR Gold Shares GLD, -0.75%, the first and largest gold exchange-traded fund. Right behind it, with $8.5 billion of net inflows, was the third member of what’s often called “the Giant Three,” BlackRock’s iShares products.
It is worth noting, as Morningstar puts it, “some of these flows might pertain to share creation to sell these ETFs short.” As previously reported, many institutional investors turn to products from State Street and BlackRock for those purposes, while Vanguard is often preferred for buy-and-hold investing decisions.
| April total, millions of dollars | Past 12 months, millions of dollars | Assets, in billions | |
| Vanguard | 347 | 138,706 | 4,885 |
| Fidelity Investments | -51 | 6,190 | 1,638 |
| American Funds | -1,148 | -23,358 | 1,600 |
| iShares | 8,529 | 112,908 | 1,540 |
| SPDR State Street Global Advisors | 16,006 | 33,647 | 670 |
| T. Rowe Price | -2,390 | -31,241 | 599 |
| Invesco | -1,668 | -40,602 | 477 |
| Dimensional Fund Advisors | -3,149 | -15,165 | 360 |
| Pimco | -346 | -11,622 | 354 |
| J.P. Morgan | 2,885 | 6,540 | 323 |
| Source: Morningstar | |||
One thing that has changed, however, is the size of the assets under management. When MarketWatch reported on Morningstar’s October report, all three of the top fund managers noted above had a lot more money under their control. With major stock indexes still well off the February highs, there is room to grow.
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