Coming off a high: ETF assets dip slightly, to $689B

Assets in the exchange-traded fund industry totaled about $689 billion as of Oct. 30, down 0.8%, or $5.3 billion, from a month earlier, according to a report today from State Street Global Advisors. The slight decline comes after assets in the ETFs reached an all-time high of $695 billion on Sept. 30. Declines were concentrated in the large-cap and small-cap categories. Assets in large-cap ETFs fell more than $5.3 billion, and assets in small-cap ETFs fell more than $2.3 billion. Seven of the ten sector categories lost assets, with one-third of the total sector losses coming from financials, according to SSgA. The remaining losses were spread evenly among consumer discretionary, health care, industrials, materials, technology and utilities. Assets in fixed-income ETFs climbed to nearly $94 billion, a gain of 3.3% for the month, according to the report. The top three managers in the ETF marketplace remained Barclays Global Investors, SSgA and The Vanguard Group Inc. Combined, the three accounted for 84.9% of the ETF market, the report said. The top three ETFs in terms of dollar volume traded in October were the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), with an average daily dollar volume of $20.06 billion; the PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ), with an average daily dollar volume of $4.07 billion; and the iShares Russell 2000 (IWM), with an average daily dollar volume of $2.92 billion. The top three ETFs by assets were the SPDR S&P 500, with $67.22 billion; SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) at $37.08 billion; and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM), with $34.43 billion.