Despite initial trepidations regarding the impending Federal Reserve rate hikes and the then-upcoming U.S. presidential election at the beginning of fourth quarter 2016, Lipper’s USDE Funds macro-classification posted its third consecutive quarter of plus-side returns (+4.06% for Q4) and its best one-year return (+10.81%) since 2013. The three biggest influences on the market during the quarter were Donald Trump’s election, the Federal Open Market Committee’s rate hike in December, and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ production cut, which collectively sent most of the major U.S. broad-based indices to multiple record highs. Total net assets (TNA) in the conventional funds business (not including exchange-traded products [ETPs] and variable insurance products [VIPs]) remained above the $16-trillion mark for Q4, but declined $55.5 billion from Q3 2016 as investors took a wait-and-see approach.
TNAs in U.S. ETPs (including exchange-traded funds, exchange-traded notes, exchange-traded commodities, limited partnership commodity pools, master limited partnerships, and exchange-traded fund [ETF] unit investment trusts) rose 5.49% from $2.4 trillion for Q3 to $2.6 trillion for Q4. In line with their conventional fund brethren, the small-cap ETPs macro-group experienced the largest relative increase (+22.97%) in TNA for Q4 2016, while the U.S. diversified equity ETPs macro-group witnessed the largest absolute increase in TNA (+$49.1 billion) for the quarter.
In the complete issue of Lipper’s U.S. Mutual Funds and Exchange-Traded Products Snapshot, we feature a summary of total net assets, estimated net flows, new fund creations, and fund liquidations for conventional funds and exchange-traded products for Q4 2016, comparing those changes to prior quarters and highlighting the largest individual gainers and losers of both groups. Lipper’s U.S. Mutual Funds and Exchange-Traded Products Snapshot provides readers a powerful, easy-to-use guide and quick reference tool to help them discern fund trends for the quarter.
Click here or on the Download Full Report link in the upper right hand column of this page to download the entire FundIndustry Insight Report: Thomson Reuters Lipper U.S. Mutual Funds & ETPs Q4 2016 Snapshot.
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