SPDR S&P 500 ETF Registers Record Fund Flows Heading Into Santa Claus Rally

Many investors in the U.S. stock markets saw their investments surge to new highs this year.

The U.S. broad market benchmark, the SPDR S&P 500 SPY, delivered over 24% returns to investors so far this year. To add to this, the past week saw record fund flows into the ETF.

The market’s performance has been led by the Technology and Communication Services sectors which are up 54% ad 51%, respectively.

In the technology sector, Nvidia NVDA, Advanced Micro Devices AMD and Palo Alto Networks PANW have been the top performers, to date. The Communication Services sector was led by Meta Platforms META, Netflix NFLX and Alphabet GOOG GOOGL.

Read: 2024 Outlook: Put, Pause, Pivot

Other S&P 500 index-tracking ETFs, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO and the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF IVV are also up by similar measure.

Monday, Dec. 18 saw record fund flows into the SPY ETF. Investors piled in $20.8 billion into the ETF on a single day – marking the highest inflow in the entire year. Incidentally, the same day saw $8.9 billion outflow from IVV ETF, and $349 million outflow from VOO ETF.

Tuesday, Dec. 19 also saw a healthy $10.2 billion inflow into the ETF. The day also saw $3.5 billion in outflow from the IVV ETF and $2 billion from VOO ETF.

The record inflows into the S&P 500 could be attributed to many factors, including (but not limited to):

• Investors buying into the year-end Santa Claus rally in the stock markets.
• The S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100’s rebalancing that occurred on Dec. 18.
• Market optimism as the Federal Reserve indicated it could cut interest rates next year.

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