Investors retreated from parts of the Asia ex-Japan market in November, industry figures show.

Exchange traded funds and exchange traded products listed in Asia-Pacific – excluding Japan - suffered net outflows of $1.2 billion in November 2015, industry figures show, in what was generally a weaker month in markets outside the US.

"Global markets were mostly down in November, developed markets outside the US declined 1 per cent, emerging markets ended down 3 per cent while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 ended up less than 1 per cent," said Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI.

The Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) ETF/ETP industry had 772 ETFs/ETPs, with 916 listings, assets of $116 billion, from 115 providers on 17 exchanges in 13 countries at the end of November 2015, according to a report from ETFGI.

ETFs are typically open-ended, index-based funds, with active ETFs accounting for less than 1 per cent of the market. They can be bought and sold like ordinary shares on a stock exchange and offer broad exposure across developed, emerging and frontier markets, equities, fixed income and commodities. Exchange traded products are similar to ETFs in some ways but do not use an open-end fund structure.
 
In the first eleven months of 2015 record levels of net new assets were gathered by ETFs/ETPs listed globally, with net inflows of $319.3 billion, marking a 15 per cent increase over the prior record set during the first eleven months of 2014. 

In the US net inflows reached $201.7 billion, up 5 per cent from the prior record set last year; in Canada net inflows at $11.4 billion are up 10.7 per cent over the prior record set in 2012. In Europe year-to-date net inflows climbed to $72.6 billion, representing an 18 per cent increase on the record set YTD through end of November 2014.  

In Japan, YTD net inflows were up 210 per cent on the prior record set in 2013, standing at $33.7 billion at the end of November 2015.