ETP volumes hold up but metals holdings fall

In volatile week for global equities, fresh year-to-date lows were reached across global indexes last week but ETP volumes picked up significantly.

Lyxor reported that weekly on-exchange exchange-traded products (ETP) turnover (which represents roughly 40% of total market) increased from €18.2bn to €31.9bn, an increase of 75% on the previous week.

Meanwhile, Cowen & Co (which recently acquired LaBranche Structured Products Europe) has released figures showing strong success in its primary market activities. Its orders increased 57% from the previous week owing to clients selling over-the-counter as spreads widened significantly.

Emerging markets ETFs did well, it reports, with only modest redemptions on the week. iShares and Lyxor topped the outflows, with Lyxor's Russia ETF, iShares MSCI Emerging Markets and Lyxor ETF China Enterprise HSCEI in the top five for outflows.

In the precious metals ETP market, ETF Securities' palladium product - which has been on the receiving end of ETP liquidation - saw its holdings fall by 99,219oz to 1.99 million oz, with the majority of the liquidation stemming from the London listing.

After two weeks of consecutive up-days in ETFS' physical gold product, holdings for the week were down by 110,392oz.

In the US, total weekly ETP turnover increased by 19.9% to $871 billion, according to Deutsche Bank. The largest increase was in equity ETP turnover which increased by $120bn or 18.7% to $764bn. Commodity ETP turnover increased by $15.3bn to $60bn last week, mainly driven by gold ETPs.

State Street Global Advisors more than doubled its market share from 22.7% to 52.5%, making it by far the week's market leader. BlackRock also increased its market share from 14.6% to 22.8%.