It seems like investors have remembered that there is something called the stock market.

According to Barron's, $40.2 billion in fresh money moved into ETFs during January, the biggest tally ever for the first month of the year. About three-fourths of the money went to U.S.-listed funds. These figures are from BlackRock’s (BLK) iShares unit, according to Barron's writer Brendan Conway.

Conway notes that more than $13 billion flowed into emerging-markets funds such as the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund and Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets, showing investors’ high hopes for this niche. Europe was also hot, he writes, with ETFs listed throughout the region hitting an 18-month high with $6.6 billion in fresh money.

Dividend-themed funds saw a 15-month high, garnering over $2.9 billion from what he described as "tax and 'fiscal cliff' worrywarts."

Conway said that treasury bond funds were out, registering as one of the only areas to see money leave in January ($2.2 billion). Gold also saw investors hit the road, pulling $1.2 billion from the group that includes SPDR Gold Trust (GLD).

To learn more about the ETF's in-crowd, go to Conway's article. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


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