European investors move in-house, gold boom in the first quarter of 2025
16 APR, 2025
By Jose Luis Palmer from RankiaPro Europe
The first quarter of 2025 closes with a change of course in the flows of UCITS ETFs registered in Europe: investors favor European stocks to the detriment of American ones, adopt a more defensive approach in fixed income and rediscover gold as a safe haven. This is what emerges from the monthly analysis of Amundi ETF based on data as of March 31, 2025.
Stocks: boom for Europe, slowdown for the United States
In the first quarter of 2025, European equity ETFs attracted net flows of 26.7 billion euros, equivalent to 30% of the total collected by ETFs, with a significant acceleration in March (over 50% of the collection).
This reversal of trend compared to the same period in 2024 — when the United States dominated — reflects a change in sentiment among investors, increasingly cautious towards North American political tensions and attracted by the renewed stability and dynamism of the Old Continent. In particular, the promises of defense spending by various European governments and the easing of German fiscal discipline have strengthened the attractiveness of EU stocks.
At the same time, strategies on global developed markets collected 17.5 billion euros in the quarter, while those on all-country world indices attracted 10 billion euros, in sharp contrast to US equity ETFs, which recorded monthly outflows of 870 million euros.
At the sector level, the industrial sector (thanks to demand for defense-related securities) and the financial sector stood out, with inflows of 1.1 billion euros each. On the contrary, the technology sector saw an outflow of 344 million euros.
Fixed income and gold: investors return to the defensive
Fixed income has shown a growing collection, with quarterly inflows of 14.6 billion euros, driven mainly by European government bonds (3.5 billion euros). US Treasuries also attracted 1.8 billion, although investors' preference remains anchored in Europe. There is also a strong interest in money market strategies (4.6 billion in the quarter) and a flight from euro-denominated investment grade corporate bonds (-589 million in March). ETFs on inflation-linked bonds have benefited from rising inflation expectations in the United States, with flows of 250 million euros.
In a context marked by geopolitical fears and volatility, gold has returned to the spotlight. ETFs and ETCs on the precious metal recorded inflows of 764 million euros in March, bringing the quarterly total to 3.8 billion: the best result since the second quarter of 2022. Gold thus reaffirms its role as a safe haven in the portfolio of European investors.
