Europe's ETF market took a hit in May, causing the market's size to register a year-to-date decline for the first time in 2012.

According to ETFGI,  European ETF assets under management fell by 8.7 percent to US$265.6 billion in May, down from US$290.0 billion in April, largely caused by a decline in the major equity indices. ETF assets in Europe now show a drop of 0.7 percent for the first five months of 2012.

By contrast, US ETF assets under management have increased by 8.1 percent in the year to date, reflecting a stronger local equity market performance and healthy cash inflows.

Despite the fall in assets under management in 2012 so far, European ETFs are also attracting inflows from investors, albeit at a slower pace than in the US market.  Net inflows to European ETFs in May were US$3.5 billion, taking year-to-date inflows up to US$5.0 billion.

iShares has scooped up the largest portion of these inflows, pulling in US$4.7 billion so far this year. This puts the issuer a long way ahead of its nearest European rivals, Source Markets—with US$1.7 billion—and SPDR ETFs—with US$1.1 billion.

On a global basis, however, iShares' US$18.4 billion of inflows still lags Vanguard, which has taken US$28.6 billion of new cash into its ETF range this year. Vanguard recently entered the European ETF market with the listing of five ETFs on the London Stock Exchange.

The biggest asset losers in the European market so far during the year to date are all bank-owned issuers, with db x-trackers experiencing net outflows of US$1.3 billion this year, EasyETF US$0.7 billion and Lyxor US$0.6 billion.

Comment Using: