November saw exchange-traded products attract inflows of $25.0 billion, bringing the year-to-date total to a record $218.9 billion, according to research by BlackRock. The previous year-to-date record was set in 2008 during the global credit crisis. Year-to-date global ETP flows have already passed 2011’s full year total of $173.4 billion.

“November’s strong flows demonstrate that investors are attracted to the flexibility ETPs provide to navigate today’s markets. Against a backdrop of the US elections and the looming fiscal cliff, investors looked to ETPs for safe-haven exposure in treasuries, while also moving into US equities, emerging market equities and emerging market bonds for higher income exposures,” Dodd Kittsley, global head of ETP research at BlackRock, said in a statement.

A separate report shows that combined assets in exchange-traded funds and ETPs listed globally reached an all-time high of over $1.9 trillion at the end of November, up by 24.2 per cent over the year to date. According to the ETF and ETP Global Insight report for November 2012, published by independent research and consultancy firm ETFGI, there are currently 4,725 ETFs and ETPs, with 9,718 listings from 208 providers on 56 exchanges.

Overall $21.3 billion of net new money was invested into ETFs and ETPs during November. Equity ETFs and ETPs saw the largest net inflows, accounting for $127 billion, followed by fixed income with $61 billion and commodities, which attracted $22 billion.