US exchange-traded fund inflows reached USD4.6bn in February after steep outflows of roughly USD16.7bn in January, according to a report by Morningstar.

The US ETF industry closed out February with about USD764.6bn in total net assets, up roughly 2.4 per cent from USD746.9bn in December and up 67.9 per cent from USD455.5bn during the same period in 2009.

While investors pulled money from domestic-stock mutual funds in February, domestic-stock ETFs topped all ETF asset classes for February inflows, led by SPDRs SPY with roughly USD1.5bn in net inflows.

Investors withdrew about USD2.9bn from international-stock ETFs in February, the most among the broad asset classes and the first monthly outflow the asset class has experienced since August 2009.

Commodity ETFs saw net outflows of approximately USD981.0m in February, which marked the second consecutive month of net redemptions after 14 straight months of net inflows.

Leveraged and leveraged-inverse ETFs saw some USD859.7m in net new assets in February, with investors favouring short exposure at the expense of leveraged funds offering long exposure.