ETF flows
Net money moving into or out of an ETF, measured as new share creations minus redemptions.
ETF flows measure the net change in an exchange-traded fund's holdings over a period. When authorized participants create new shares, the fund buys the underlying assets and flows are positive; when shares are redeemed, the fund sells and flows are negative. Flows are usually reported in dollars and as a share of assets.
On our site, flows are shown daily or weekly alongside the fund's total assets. Flows large enough to move the price of the underlying asset are more informative than flows that merely follow price.
Traders care because sustained inflows add buying pressure to the underlying market, and outflows can reverse it. Flows also show where investors are putting money, which can lead price in some markets.
Worked example (illustrative numbers, not real data): a fund with 10 billion dollars in assets records 300 million dollars of inflows in one week, or 3 percent of assets. The fund must buy about 300 million dollars of the underlying, which is a material amount if the market trades about 1 billion dollars a day.