08/04/25 13:47:46

ETFs: “Extreme levies”

With the heavy price losses on the global equity markets, ETFs are also being thrown out of portfolios - especially those with US equities and tech stocks, but by no means exclusively. Only money market trackers are in demand. And anything to do with gold.
 

8 April 2025. FRANKFURT (Börse Frankfurt). The sell-off on the stock markets and the high volatility are causing a lot of turnover in ETF trading - and a lot of selling. “We saw a lot of selling on Thursday and Friday, but especially yesterday, Monday,” reports Ivo Orlemann from ICF Bank and reports “lots and lots of selling” across all indices. Leo Puschmann from Lang & Schwarz speaks of “extreme” selling. The only exception: gold mining ETFs and gold and silver ETCs. However, the situation has calmed down somewhat at the moment. “The sell-off continued until midday yesterday, and since then there have been buyers again,” explains Puschmann.

After “Black Friday” and “Panic Monday”, the stock markets recovered somewhat on Tuesday morning. The DAX is even back above 20,100 points at midday, after briefly falling below 19,000 points yesterday. However, the record high of 23,476 points is still a long way off. Wall Street closed above its lows yesterday. Since the all-time highs, however, the Dow Jones has still lost 16 percent and the Nasdaq 100 over 20 percent.

Everything has to go, especially US equities

According to Puschmann, Nasdaq, S&P 500, MSCI World (IE00B4L5Y983) and DAX trackers were all sold, as were ETFs that track Asian equities, such as Nikkei trackers (LU0839027447). According to Frank Mohr from Société Générale, S&P 500 ETFs were clearly the focus of the sell-off. “The trend in MSCI World ETFs was less pronounced, European equities were even bought - except for yesterday, Monday.”

According to Puschmann, products with leverage, such as the WisdomTree Nasdaq 100 3x Daily Leveraged (IE00BLRPRL42) and its short variant (IE00BLRPRJ20), also saw very high turnover. The L&G DAX Daily 2x Long ETF (IE00B4QNHH68) also generated high turnover. One of the most traded products at Lang & Schwarz is the WisdomTree S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures 2.25x Daily Leveraged (XS2819843736), which tracks the fluctuation range of the S&P 500 with leverage. Volatility indices such as the VDAX are currently above the levels at the outbreak of the Ukraine war - and higher than at any time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Tech stocks in sell-off, defense ETFs less in demand

The crash in tech stocks is also leading to extremely high sales of tech ETFs, as Mohr observes. Former favorites are affected, specifically the iShares S&amp;P 500 Information Technology (IE00B3WJKG14), the Xtrackers Artificial Intelligence &amp; Big Data (IE00BGV5VN51) and the Xtrackers MSCI World Information Technology (<IE00BM67HT6>). Banking ETFs such as the iShares Euro Stoxx Banks 30-15 (DE0006289309) are also being sold off, as are healthcare ETFs. Even buying interest in the long-popular defense stocks has waned, as traders report. At Lang & Schwarz, the Future of Defense (IE000OJ5TQP4) is at best still seeing some movement.

Defense ETFs extremely high turnover. With VanEck Defense (IE000YYE6WK5), a defense ETF made it onto the list of the highest-volume ETFs on Xetra in March, taking fifth place. The new WisdomTree Europe Defense (IE0002Y8CX98) is in 15th place, the HANetf Future of Defense (IE000OJ5TQP4) in 22nd place. iShares ETFs on Euro Stoxx 50 (DE0005933956), MSCI World (IE00B4L5Y983), S&P 500 (IE00B5BMR087) and DAX (DE0005933931) occupy the first four places.
 

Actively managed ETFs are not spared from the sell-off either, nor from significant price losses: according to Mohr, the JPM US Research Enhanced Index Equity (IE00BF4G7076), for example, is affected.

Popular “safe havens”: Money market and gold mining ETFs

However, money market trackers such as Xtrackers II EUR Overnight Rate Swap (LU0290358497) are in demand, as Mohr notes, as are US Treasuries of various maturities.

Gold mining ETFs and gold and silver ETCs are also in demand as “safe havens”, as Puschmann reports. Following its rise to a new all-time high of just under USD 3,139, the price of gold has not risen recently, however, and currently stands at just over USD 3,000. Trading in crypto ETNs remains remarkably quiet, as both Orlemann and Puschmann report.

Gold mining ETFs at the top. Gold mining ETFs dominate the top 10 best sector indices for ETFs this year, as the ETF portal justETF shows. ETFs on the DAXglobal Gold Miners (IE00B3CNHG25), the Soloactive Global Pure Gold Miners (IE00B7KMNP07), the S&amp;P Commodity Producers Gold (IE00B6R52036) and the NYSE Arca Gold Miners (IE00BQQP9F84) have performed best since the beginning of the year, with gains of between 16 and 22 percent. Despite recent setbacks, financial services ETFs also performed well, specifically the Euro Stoxx Banks 30-15 (DE0006289309) and the Euro Stoxx Banks (LU1829219390) with gains of 14% and 9% respectively.
 

By Anna-Maria Borse, 8 April 2025, © Deutsche Börse AG

Anna-Maria Borse is a financial and business editor specializing in the financial market/stock exchange and economic topics.

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