May ETF Stats Part I

May 2011 was another productive month for the exchange traded products industry as total assets under management at U.S.-listed ETFs and ETNs jumped to $1.11 trillion from $798 billion a year earlier. There are now 1,254 exchange traded products listed in the U.S., an increase of more than 25% from 995 in May 2010. ETFs and ETNs posted net cash outflows of approximately $978 million for the month of May 2011, but, year-to-date net cash inflows stood at $50.4 billion, an increase of approximately 83% over the same time period in 2010, according to the National Stock Exchange. Thirty-nine new ETFs and ETNs were introduced last month compared with 43 new product listings in April. BlackRock's BLK iShares, the largest U.S. ETF issuer, saw its ETF assets under management fall to $484.9 billion last month from $497 billion in April. State Street's STT SSgA ETF unit also saw its AUM total fall to $259.6 billion from $268.3 billion in April. Of the three largest U.S. ETF sponsors, only Vanguard saw its AUM total rise in May. Invesco's IVZ PowerShares, ProShares, the largest issuer of inverse and leveraged ETFs, and Van Eck's Market Vectors unit, also saw their ETF AUM totals fall in May. Investors pulled more than $10 billion from long U.S. equity ETFs last month and nearly the same amount for international ETFs, according to NSX data. More than $9 billion was pulled from unleveraged long commodities funds. The Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF VWO lost almost $700 million in AUM last month while its chief rival, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund EEM, shed more than $1.5 billion in assets. There are now 1,089 ETFs and 165 ETNs listed on U.S. exchanges.