The scale of the ETF and ETP industry rose to new heights last month, new figures indicate.

Assets in exchange traded funds and exchange traded products stand at record levels, amounting to $2.919 trillion globally, with February seeing the second largest inflows of net new money to date, according to new research.

Of the $50.7 billion in net new assets recorded last month, iShares accounted for the lion’s share, at $19.9 billion, followed by Vanguard with $5.9 billion and SPDR ETFs with $4.3 billion.

Research firm ETFGI, which compiled the research, said it expects global assets to break through the $3 trillion mark in the first half of this year.

“Investors allocated the majority of net new assets to equities as the US market rebounded from a difficult January to end February with both the S&P 500 and the Dow up 6 per cent for the month. Volatility declined during the month. Developed markets were up 6 per cent for the month, while emerging and frontier markets were up 3 per cent,” said Deborah Fuhr, managing partner of 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.

ETFGI measured assets and inflows within ETFs and ETPs globally throughout February for the report. The firm estimates that the industry comprises 5,632 ETFs and ETPs, with 10,902 listings from 245 providers on 63 exchanges within 51 countries.

The research, which coincides with the 25th anniversary of the first ever ETF listing in Canada, shows that February’s net new asset inflows stood at the second largest on record, behind the $61.319 billion of net new asset inflows recorded by the firm in December 2014.

ETFGI said that equity ETFs/ETPs comprised the largest net inflows, at $30.4 billion, followed by fixed income at $15.6 billion. Commodity ETFs and ETPs accounted for $2.9 billion in net inflows over the course of the month. Looking at February’s figures on a year-to-date basis, ETFGI said that net new asset flows into fixed income, commodities, active ETFs and global inflows all stand at record levels of $28.8 billion, $8.0 billion, $2.7 billion and $62.0 billion respectively.

On a year-to-date basis, iShares and Vanguard have dominated the global share of net inflows over the last year, with total annual figures standing at $26.9 billion and $15.7 billion respectively.