Two of the most-popular ETFs of the past week had no connection to the artificial intelligence craze driving huge gains in parts of the stock market. The iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) raked in more than $1 billion of inflows over the past week through Thursday’s close, according to FactSet. The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) was another successful fund, pulling in about $270 million. Those flows are a notable contrast to the market’s performance this week, where large tech stocks outperformed. Both gold and the Russell 2000 have fallen slightly in May, so the inflows could reflect investors buying a dip. Three broad Vanguard funds also made the top five, including the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) , which does have a large weight in Nvidia. ETF fund flows are not always a perfect gauge for what investors are betting on. The focus on one product can miss trends in other areas, such as individual stock purchases, and fund flows can also be caused by larger investors entering short positions. Some top performers of the week by price return include the Global X MSCI Greek ETF (GREK) , which gained more than 6% through Thursday’s close, and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) , which added 5.4%. Here are some other notable funds from the week: The Franklin FTSE India ETF (FLIN) pulled in $49 million of cash, a relatively large amount for a fund still under $200 million. The ETF is roughly flat year to date. Nvidia’s blowout earnings report gave a jolt to the single-stock ETFs that track the chip giant. The AXS 1.25x NVDA Bear Daily ETF (NVDS) had its highest trading day on record Thursday. The fund fell 30% on the day but still has more than $100 million in assets. The GraniteShares 1.5x Long NVDA Daily ETF (NVDL) also had a record-high volume day, but the fund remains much smaller at about $30 million of assets under management.
This story originally appeared on CNBC
