European ETF investors switched their focus from bonds back to equities in July, according to new figures from ETFGI.

Europe-listed equity ETFs attracted US$1.6 billion in new cash flows last month, compared with US$1.1 billion of net purchases of bond ETFs, ETFGI reports.

However, over the year to date bond ETFs have still outsold equity trackers, with these two fund categories attracting net inflows of US$4.3 billion and US$3.4 billion, respectively. Corporate bond ETFs have generated by far the most interest by fund type, receiving almost all the net cash inflows to bond tracker funds.

European investors continue to express a strong preference for funds that use physical, rather than synthetic (derivatives-based) replication to track their indices, notes ETFGI. Physical ETFs have experienced net inflows of US$11.5 billion in the year to date, the firm says, while synthetic ETFs have experienced net outflows of US$1.1 billion over the same period.

Reflecting this trend, iShares has strengthened its position as Europe’s dominant ETF provider, with the firm attracting over 70% of all net new cash flows into the region’s exchange-traded funds during the first seven months of the year. iShares also collected half of Europe’s US$30 billion ETF inflows in 2011. Measured by ETF assets under management, iShares has a 41% market share in Europe, followed by db x-trackers (14%) and Lyxor (12%).

While iShares has received cash flows of over US$8 billion this year, the only other European ETF issuers that have attracted over US$1 billion of investor cash are Source, SPDR and Amundi. Meanwhile, db x-trackers, Commerzbank, EasyETF, Lyxor, Powershares, XACT and RBS have all seen their investor bases shrink, with these firms suffering net redemptions in 2012.

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