Data Centre: ETFs shine even more brightly for instos

Passive investing continues to gain momentum across the world with institutional and retail investors alike. But in Asia, the trend towards passive investing has been far less advanced than in other markets. 

But the 2019 Global ETF Investor survey by Brown Brothers Harriman revealed that Greater China asset owners are increasingly looking to put more of their capital into exchange-traded funds, in an effort to both reduce costs and to find areas of asset diversification and specialisation. 

The survey's results, which are based on responses from 300 global institutional investors, show that despite a torrid fourth quarter of 2018 in terms of equity and bond market performance, the appeal of passive investment vehicles such as ETFs remains strong. This is in large part because active fund managers have failed to convincingly demonstrate their ability to outperform industry indexes, despite charging far higher fees. 

AsianInvestor has summarised some of the results of the survey for its Data Centre in its Spring magazine. The graphs and charts can be found here.