Saudi Arabia to outpace India at top of ETF ranking

Riyadh — Saudi Arabia is climbing quickly in a ranking that tracks flows into exchange-traded funds of developing countries this year, and could soon take first position away from India.

New money invested in ETFs in the two nations totaled about $4.8 billion in 2019, according to a ranking compiled by Bloomberg.

That’s almost twice the sum for the eight other countries in the list.

Inflows to Saudi shares are expected to keep growing as MSCI Inc. and FTSE Russell add some of the Kingdom’s biggest companies to their main emerging-market benchmarks in the coming months.

The upgrade by the two main global index compilers started in March, and is scheduled for completion next year.

If the net inflows for the last three months are considered alone, Saudi Arabia already appears on top of the ranking, with India following.

The London-traded Invesco MSCI Saudi Arabia UCITS ETF, the largest ETF tracking Saudi shares, had net inflows of near $910 million in May, the most for a month since its inception last year, boosting its net for the year to $1.4 billion. — SG