ETF Buyers Have Shied Away From The USA Since Trump's Election

(Bloomberg) -- It’s been exactly one year since Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, and what have buyers of exchange-traded funds done? Flee the country.

The shift shows investors may be growing impatient with the implementation of Trump’s agenda, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas.

The top ten ETFs that have recorded only inflows of cash since the election have one notable characteristic in common -- their holdings exclude U.S. companies. At the top of the list is the iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA), a cheap, large-cap fund tracking companies in developed market countries, according to a Bloomberg analysis of flow data.

Japanese companies represent about 25 percent of the holdings and U.K. firms make up about 15 percent of the constituents. Assets in IEFA have almost tripled since the election to about $4 billion from $1.4 billion.

Below is a list of the ten largest ETFs that have seen only inflows since Trump’s election through Nov. 7, according to Bloomberg data. The majority of the funds charge a fee in the range of six to 14 basis points. The average asset-weighted expense ratio for U.S.-listed ETFs is about 23 basis points, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data.

To contact the reporters on this story: Carolina Wilson in New York City at cwilson166@bloomberg.net, Wendy Soong in New York at csoong@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Arie Shapira at ashapira3@bloomberg.net, Morwenna Coniam

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