Across the globe, assets held in these index-tracking vehicles hit a record in November, 2016, although some regionally-focused ETFs and ETPs showed variation.

ETFs reached record levels of assets under management at the end of November for ETFs/ETPs: $3.4 trillion globally, $2.4 trillion in the US and $83.4 billion in Canada according to ETFGI.

Assets invested in ETFs/ETPs listed in Europe however, were $556 billion; down from the record high of $567 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2016. ETFs are typically open-ended, index-based funds that can be bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange. They offer broad exposure across developed, emerging and frontier markets, equities, fixed income and commodities. Exchange-traded products do not use an open-end fund structure. The US market had a good month in November, with the S&P 500 up 3.7 per cent and the DJIA increased by 5.9 per cent. The strong dollar caused currency headwinds for international markets," said Deborah Fuhr, co-founder and managing partner at ETFGI.

"In Europe, S&P Europe 350 gained 1.24% in November, with almost all the gains attributable to the UK pound rising faster than the British stock market fell. During November the VIX declined dramatically by 21.9%," she added.

The European ETF/ETP industry had 2,228 ETFs/ETPs, with 7,023 listings, assets of $556 billion, from 56 providers listed on 25 exchanges in 21 countries. The ETFs and ETPs listed in Europe gathered net inflows of $3.59 billion.

Net flows gathered by ETFs/ETPs in November were $3.59 billion of net new assets, marking the 27th consecutive month of net inflows.

In November, equity ETFs/ETPs gathered net inflows of $7.81 billion, fixed income ETFs/ETPs experienced net outflows of $3.82 billion, and commodity ETFs/ETPs saw net outflows of $398 million.

BNP Paribas Easy gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows at $1.54 billion, followed by Vanguard with $883 million and Source with $718 million.

iShares gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows in the year-to-date with $28.53 billion, followed by ETF Securities with $5.22 billion and SPDR ETFs with $4.61 billion.

ETFGI is a London-headquartered investments research and consultancy firm whose regular reports track the developments in these investment vehicles.