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The Flow Show: ETFs are on the brink of luring more money in seven months than in any calendar year on record

Report from Bloomberg. . .Within that surge is a historic capitulation by the mutual fund industry. ETFs are vehicles that pool investor cash, just like mutual funds. The difference is they trade all day like stocks, and a quirk in the way they operate — swapping assets with an intermediary — helps them to defer tax liabilities.

First created more than 30 years ago, their popularity has surged since the 2008 financial crisis. In the brutal economic fallout, mistrust of money managers grew and investors gravitated to largely passive and transparent ETFs, doubling assets in U.S. funds to $1 trillion by 2010. History is now repeating, and the Covid crash last year has triggered another dash into ETFs >

FLASH FORWARD

> ". . .A trio of money managers — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Corp. — account for roughly 80% of the market, and thanks to the boom, they now control vast chunks of Corporate America.

Big Three

BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street make up majority of ETF industry

Source: Bloomberg

This “Big Three” collectively own about 22% of the typical S&P 500 company, according to Bloomberg data, up from 13.5% in 2008. That’s drawing the attention of regulators and raising concerns about what such dominance means for everything from corporate governance to how markets function.

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There are no guarantees the annual ETF flow record will be broken, of course. The second-half of 2021 could sour, and all that new cash could run for the exits. But history suggests it’s unlikely.

The Big Take

Wall Street Has Surrendered to the $500 Billion ETF Rush

Vanguard leads the way as industry prepares to shatter annual record with months to go

By 

Claire Ballentine

 and 

Francesca Maglione

July 14, 2021, 9:01 PM MST Updated on July 15, 2021, 1:01 AM MST

U.S. money managers couldn’t stop the march toward exchange-traded funds, so they decided to join it instead. Now it’s more like a stampede.

More 

Fund assets in the U.S. have jumped to a record $6.6 trillion, up from $3.7 trillion at the height of last year’s selloff. ETFs added $497 billion in new cash in 2020, while mutual funds suffered net withdrawals of $506 billion.

Battle for Assets

ETFs beat out mutual funds for inflows in recent years

Source: Bloomberg

“The stress period we lived through in the first quarter of 2020 further validated not just the ETF structure but the ETF ecosystem in its entirety,” said Ben Johnson, Morningstar’s global director of ETF research. “It gave more investors greater confidence than ever that this is a suitable way to package and deliver not just different market exposures, but different investment strategies.”

ETFs have collectively lost money only two months in the past three years. Even then, outflows are often relatively mild. As the world economy ground to a halt because of the pandemic in March last year and global stock markets crumpled, $357 billion was pulled from U.S. mutual funds. For ETFs, it was more like $17 billion.

“ETFs are an easy button of sorts that you can hit to get exposure to any number of different segments of the market, which draws from a much broader investor base than mutual funds ever had,” said Morningstar’s Johnson

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USA FACTS: Violent Crime/Property Crime, Increases In Home Prices, Seattle Air-Conditioning and Human-Caused Wildfires (2019)

Violent crime is up, property crime is down New FBI data shows that 2020 broke a 30-year trend: violent crime was up 3.3% last year compared to 2019 after decreasing almost every year since 1991. Meanwhile, property crime decreased by 7.9%. A new USAFacts report brakes down this preliminary data for insights into crime last year. Homicides increased by 25% in 2020, from 16,424 nationwide to 20,480. Despite the increase, homicides were 3% lower than in the 1990s. While the homicide rate gets attention due to the clear severity of the crime, homicides comprise 1% of all violent crime in this FBI data.    The FBI divides this violent crime data into four categories: homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Aggravated assault is the largest category, comprising 66% of violent crimes and driving the uptick in the violent crime rate by rising 10.5%. Aggravated assaults rose for all population groups except cities with fewer than 10,000 people.   The decrease in property crime led to a lower overall 2020 crime rate compared to 2019. In fact, this was the largest percent reduction in property crime in the past five years. Larceny-theft decreased by 10.5% in 2020, driving both the property and overall crime rates down.  Dive into even more data here, including what changes drove down the property crime rate and which city had the largest increase in homicides.   USAFacts wants to hear from you What would you like to see more of in this newsletter? Please take our survey to let us know how you feel about the topics and visualizations we send each week. We'd love to hear how this newsletter can best serve you. Click here to start the survey. Average home prices are up 16% As the nation deals with a lack of housing stock and many people opt for single-family homes instead of apartments during the pandemic, home prices are climbing nationwide. This new interactive visual details how the cost of a $100,000 home has increased since 1991. Select from the nation's 100 largest metro areas and track them in quarterly intervals so you can precisely measure price fluctuations near you. The price of an average home increased 16% between April 2020 and April 2021, the largest yearly jump since at least 1992.   Some areas had 20% or higher increases in home prices during the pandemic. Prices in Boise, Idaho rose 28% in the first quarter of 2021, the largest increase among the 100 biggest metropolitan areas. Honolulu was the only metro area where prices decreased, down -0.85%.   The Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index shows the average single-family home purchased for $100,000 in January 1991 would be worth $331,190 in April 2021. Nineteen percent of the increase, or $45,000, occurred in the last year. Dive into the years of data with this visualization.    Less than half of Seattle households have air conditioning  Speaking of homes, households in Southern cities including Houston, Miami, and Atlanta are likely to have air conditioning to keep them cool during the summer. But the record temperatures that stretched from the northernmost parts of California up through British Columbia, Canada two weeks ago meant many Western households endured the heat without much relief. Ninety-one percent of American households had central air or window units in 2019. Of the nation's largest 15 metro areas, Seattle had the fewest homes with air conditioning, at 44%. Temperatures in the city reached 107 F during the late June heatwave.  However, in Portland, Oregon, where temperatures reached 115 F, 79% of households had air conditioning. See the article at USAFacts here. And to learn more about temperatures nationwide, check out the State of the Earth. One last fact  People caused 87% of wildfires in 2019. States including Washington and Georgia have implemented burn bans through September 2021. When camping or barbecuing this summer, remember the advice of government employee Smokey the Bear: "Only you can prevent forest fires."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | More Arizona communities are leveraging brownfields grants to revitalize blighted properties statewide

More Arizona communities are leveraging brownfields grants to revitalize blighted properties statewide PHOENIX (July 13, 2021) – More Arizona communities are leveraging brownfields grants to revitalize blighted properties statewide. Brownfields grants help municipalities and nonprofits identify and reduce environmental hazards, mitigate public health threats, create new business opportunities, increase tax revenues and restore impacted properties to beneficial reuse. Each year, communities across the nation compete for limited federal brownfields grant funds. Common brownfields projects involve redeveloping main streets to boost tourism and community services, creating additional greenspaces and adding healthcare facilities. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) both administers a state-level Brownfields Assistance Program to provide brownfields grant funds and helps municipal and nonprofit applicants prepare successful federal grant applications. ADEQ awarded $414,000 in brownfields grants in fiscal year 2021 to support these accomplishments: The Lowell Observatory (Flagstaff) assessed and cleaned up existing buildings as they overhaul the site to optimize both their manufacturing functionality and visitor experience. Gila County removed lead and asbestos from an abandoned building in Hayden adjacent to a former Brownfields site. Together, the two properties were revitalized into a rest stop with picnic tables that overlook the area. San Carlos Apache Tribe removed an asbestos-filled building at the Cutter Airport, which is looking to expand and grow. City of Show Low cleaned up asbestos and lead from the former junior high school, which repurposed the existing structures to provide community services. ADEQ’s Brownfields Assistance Program also funded completion of seven environmental assessments that helped to identify hazardous waste and building material that can be translated into cleanup projects for fiscal year 2022. “As our Brownfields team continues to support more municipalities and nonprofits to address local environmental issues, together we are completing impactful projects that protect Arizonans’ health and provide lasting economic benefits for our communities,” said ADEQ Director Misael Cabrera. P.E.  “Even during the pandemic, 12 Arizona communities successfully continued work on brownfields projects,” said ADEQ Brownfields Coordinator Travis Barnum. “This is a testament to our small and rural communities’ resourcefulness and resilience.” “Gila County is excited to receive this funding as it will enable us to enhance our efforts towards combating blight in our smaller communities and unincorporated areas,” said Gila County Supervisor Woody Cline.  Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded an additional $2.95M in brownfields grants to communities in Apache, Gila, Navajo, Pinal and Yuma counties, as well as to the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community and Navajo Nation. “For many years leaders from throughout Arizona's Copper Corridor have been struggling to combat blight, we are finally making significant improvements thanks to the support and grants through the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality,” said Mayor Mila Besich from the Town of Superior. “The award of the Regional EPA Brownfields grant will increase our opportunity to improve the health and safety for our communities, while also creating new opportunities for economic growth for Superior and Arizona’s Copper Corridor region.”  What are Brownfields? | Learn More > For details about the more than 130 state-supported brownfields projects in more than 44 communities | Brownfields Assistance Program Awards Listing > The Brownfields Assistance Program conducts projects through Arizona’s State Response Grant using funds provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. The program assists local governments, schools, hospitals, nonprofit and tribes. Program funds are limited | Download Application > View EPA’s brownfields news release | View Contact | ADEQ Public Information Officer 602-540-8072 | Email > About ADEQ Under the Environmental Quality Act of 1986, the Arizona State Legislature established the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in 1987 as the state agency for protecting and enhancing public health and the environment of Arizona. For more information, visit azdeq.gov. ADEQ will take reasonable measures to provide access to department services to individuals with limited ability to speak, write or understand English and/or to those with disabilities. Requests for language translation, ASL interpretation, CART captioning services or disability accommodations must be made at least 48 hours in advance by contacting the Title VI Nondiscrimination Coordinator at 602-771-2215 or Communications@azdeq.gov. For a TTY or other device, Telecommunications Relay Services are available by calling 711. ADEQ tomará las medidas razonables para proveer acceso a los servicios del departamento a personas con capacidad limitada para hablar, escribir o entender inglés y/o para personas con discapacidades. Las solicitudes de servicios de traducción  de idiomas, interpretación ASL (lengua de signos americano), subtitulado de CART, o adaptaciones por discapacidad deben realizarse con al menos 48 horas de anticipación comunicándose con el  Coordinador de Anti-Discriminación del Título VI al 602-771-2215 o Communications@azdeq.gov. Para un TTY u otro dispositivo, los servicios de retransmisión de telecomunicaciones están disponible llamando al 711.

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