Issues of equity-based exchange traded funds totaled $121.7 billion in Q4 2005 (annualized basis), according to Federal Reserve Flow of Funds table F123.

This level of flows into ETFs set a record.

According to the Investment Company Institute, the number of ETFs increased from 151 in December 2004 to 201 in December 2005.

In December 2005, domestic equity index funds made up 73% of ETFs, international equity index funds were 24% of the total, and 3% were bond index funds.

Nuveen Investments, a leading specialist in tax exempt municipal bond funds, publishes a special website (ETFConnect) that presents well-organized information on closed-end and exchange-traded funds, without charge.

For many funds in this category, the site provides fundamental data, Standard & Poor’s Stock Reports, SEC Filings, Industry Diversification, Country Diversification, Investment Quality, Credit Quality, Annualized Total Returns, Investment Objective, and Dividend History.

The Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Data on Closed-End and Exchange-Traded Funds are shown in Table F123 on this site.

New money flowing into the eight categories that we follow under the rubric “fund managers” reached $287.4 billion in Q2 2004.

Of this amount, about 41% was represented by sales of mutual fund shares. To put this in perspective, all domestic savings entering the market through these institutional channels did not amount to even half the savings flowing to the U.S. from overseas, mostly as a result of the trade deficit.

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