Pimco Ranks as 2022’s Biggest Loser in $6.5 Trillion ETF Market

The worst year in the history of Pacific Investment Management Co.'s exchange-traded fund business was in 2022.

The biggest cumulative outflow in the history of the asset manager was from over 20 Pimco and Allianz- branded funds. The exodus was the largest among US issuers in the year of 2022.

As the Federal Reserve tried to combat the worst US inflation in four decades, Pimco's bond-heavy exchange traded fund lineup was rattled by the volatility of the market. The majority of the cash went into passive funds. James Seyffart said that investors were quick to exit Pimco's largest bond exchange traded fund.

While Pimco has a somewhat diversified fund offering, they're mostly an active fixed-income shop and the worst place to be for a fund company in 2022, was running active fixed-income funds. It was not a good year for them.

Even though most of the funds posted losses, roughly $194 billion flowed into bond exchange traded funds. Less than $10 billion went to actively managed funds.

Pimco had some success stories last year, with its long-dated, zero-coupon Treasury fund attracting $600 million, but it wasn't enough to offset the pain of its biggest fund. Despite record demand for short-dated products, $4.4 billion was exited from the Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity ActiveETF, which used to be the largest active exchange traded fund.

A request for comment was not responded to by Pimco.

If people were using MINT as a sort of cash-like position, they would probably move money to alternatives like money market funds.