The iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF has become the first exchange-traded fund domiciled and listed in Europe to surpass $30 billion in assets under management.
Stephen Cohen, Head of iShares EMEA at BlackRock.
Strong inflows and healthy market performance powered the BlackRock ETF past the milestone on 31 July 2018.
The ETF was also Europe’s first to cross the $20bn mark, which it reached in February last year.
Bullish US sentiment was instrumental in achieving the previous landmark, as the underlying S&P 500 Index rallied approximately 26% in the year before.
The performance of US equities has again been a contributing factor, with the bellwether index up 13.7% over the past year.
Net New Assets (in USD) (iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF)
MiFID II and other regulatory tailwinds, such as the Retail Distribution Review in the UK, have also played a role in this latest achievement.
Stephen Cohen, Head of iShares EMEA at BlackRock, commented: “Investors are demanding smarter portfolios that deliver value for money, and this milestone shows that investors are increasingly using ETFs at the heart of their portfolios.”
He added: “The S&P is outperforming other developing and emerging market equities this year, while strong earnings and economic growth in the US are driving positive sentiment towards the exposure. We expect more and more investors to express their outlook using our fund.”
Big but small
The ETF is physically backed and has a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.07%, making it one of Europe’s cheapest funds.
It has several listings across Europe including on the London Stock Exchange, in US dollars and pound sterling; on the Borsa Italiana, Deutsche Boerse and Euronext Amsterdam, in euros; and on the SIX Swiss Exchange, in US dollars.
Whilst the ETF is big, there are 24 ETFs in the US boasting more than $30bn is assets. It also seems small compared to its US cousin, the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV US) listed on NYSE Arca, which houses some $152bn in assets, or the even-bigger SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY US) with $270bn in assets.
But all this just suggests that it and others in Europe still have a very long way to go.
ETF assets since inception (in USD) (iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF)