European ETF market surpasses $1trn milestone

The European ETF/ETP market has broken a key milestone as its assets surpassed the trillion-dollar mark to end 2019 with $1.027trn, according to preliminary data from ETFGI.

This breakthrough comes just ahead of the industry's 20th anniversary on 11 April, marking two decades since the first ETFs were listed in Europe.

The LDRS DJ STOXX 50 and LDRS DJ EUROSTOXX 50 were listed by Merrill Lynch on 11 April 2000, with the iShares FTSE 100 ETF in close pursuit on 28 April 2000.

The LDRS ETFs were then acquired by Barclays Global Investors in September 2003 and renamed iShares DJ STOXX 50 and iShares DJ EUROSTOXXX 50.

Net inflows for the industry in 2019 totalled $125.3bn, with $20.4bn of those coming in December alone.

Fixed income beat equities to the top spot for inflows, taking $61.1bn and $51.7bn respectively, with commodity trailing in third with $8.7bn of inflows.