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By Beverly Chandler, Opalesque London:

In its half yearly report on the ETF industry, BlackRock comments that in the first half of 2011, global investment markets are faced with ongoing uncertainty on the outlook for the global economy; eurozone sovereign crisis; the EU's Greek crisis; concerns over the United States growth sustainability; the end of QE2; social and political unrest throughout the Middle East and northern Africa; unpredictable weather; and China's inflation problems.

The firm observes that during this period, US$82.6bn of net new assets flowed into a broad spectrum of ETF products as investors responded to these events and were able to implement appropriate, highly focused investment strategies in a timely fashion.

The ETF industry’s 10% increase in AUM for the first half – from US$1.311 trillion to US$1.1443 trillion – exceeded the 4.0% semi-annual increase in the MSCI World Index in US dollar terms, and also topped the industry’s 1.0% decrease in AUM over the same period in 2010.

BlackRock says: "Industry asset flows in the first half illustrate yet again that ETF and ETP product trends have come to represent sound 'proxies’ for investor views and sentiments across the full range of asset classes and global markets. ETFs offer immediate exposure to a large array of indices with the flexibility to be traded at any time with multiple brokers when markets are open. The products offer a menu of cost-effective, transparent produc......................

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