Infrastructure remains appealing among thematic trends  

The trend ‘Equality, Inclusion, and Diversity’ appealed to investors last week, netting USD$690 million amid news of the EU commission adopting Austria’s EUR€1.3 billion cohesion investment strategy. Infrastructure remained attractive, enticing investors with USD$430 million net inflows and promising performance in the ‘Energy Infrastructure’ theme.

Investments in Equality, Inclusion, and Diversity went through the roof

‘Equality, Inclusion, and Diversity’ trends topped the most inflows for last week. This strategy attracted USD$690 million of new assets as news of a European partnership to push the cohesion investment agenda emerged. The European Commission adopted its Partnership Agreement with Austria, laying down a EUR€1.3 billion cohesion policy investment strategy for 2021 to 2027. Approximately 10% of the total funds, EUR€130 million, were allocated to promote social cohesion as extra attention will be paid to equal opportunities and gender equality.  

‘Gender Equality’ and ‘Inclusion and Diversity’ were the only two themes that followed the ‘Equality, Inclusion, and Diversity’ trend. ‘Gender Equality’ was the most attractive theme, having dominated all flows in the trend. The theme registered USD$690 million of net inflows last week. 16 ETFs tracked ‘Gender Equality,’ but inflows into the theme were spread across eight geographically diversified ETFs invested in developed markets. On the other hand, the ‘Inclusion and Diversity’ theme hasn’t experienced any noticeable flow actions.

ETFs in play:

• Gender Equality ETFs
• Inclusion and Diversity ETFs

Infrastructure the top-performing trend

‘Infrastructure’ was the second most successful trend in attracting investors. It recorded USD$395 million in net inflows last week, which came from investments in the ‘Energy Infrastructure’ theme. It’s become very apparent lately that the European Union is serious about sanctioning Russian oil and related refined products and is considering banning all oil transportation services, including shipping and insurance. This has only propelled oil prices upwards over concerns of a tightening supply. Investors flocked to ETFs in the energy space, and the ‘Energy Infrastructure’ theme was there to reap the benefits. Energy Infrastructure ETFs were the best performing funds for the year (+21.41% year-to-date). To put things into context, the second top performers were Agribusiness ETFs (+5.84% year-to-date), while all other themes weren’t successful at generating any positive results. The ‘Energy Infrastructure’ generated USD$98 million in net inflows compared to USD$22 million for the ‘Global Infrastructure’ theme – another theme capturing the investment opportunity of the ‘Infrastructure’ trend.

ETFs in play:

• Energy Infrastructure ETFs
• Global Infrastructure ETFs

Data for this article is as of May 06th, 2022.