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• Daily ETF Flows: DIA Gathers $458M
• Daily ETF Flows: Assets Jump To Record $1.476T
• Wall St. Bears Turn Bullish, Investors Agree

• DIA 67% Rate It
• GLD 77% Rate It
• IEI 0% Rate It
• IWM 50% Rate It
• SPY 54% Rate It

The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca:GLD), the $68 billion bullion ETF, was the most popular exchange-traded fund last month, as investors began positioning themselves for the possibility of the Fed launching another round of quantitative easing aimed at reviving flagging economic growth.

Overall, investors poured $5.75 billion into ETFs and, including the Dow Jones industrial average's 0.6 percent gain last month, total assets rose 2.2 percent to almost $1.235 trillion, according to data compiled by IndexUniverse. That total was just shy of the all-time high of $1.240 trillion reached on Wednesday, Aug. 29.

GLD was the leading edge of those flows-pulling in almost $2 billion in fresh assets-in a clear sign investors are starting to believe the Federal Reserve will embark on a new round of bond buying called 'quantitative easing.'

The purchases are designed to keep yields low and encourage borrowing, while also boosting asset prices, such as stocks, bonds and commodities. Gold prices get a shot in the arm because QE has the effect of weakening the dollar, making the price of dollar-priced gold go up. Gold futures spiked by 1.9 percent last Friday after Bernanke hinted at the rising probability of QE3.

The No. 2 fund on IndexUniverse's 'Top Gainers' table was the Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca:VWO), followed by the iShares Barclays 3-7 Year Treasury Bond Fund (NYSEArca:IEI). VWO gathered $824.3 million, while IEI added $752.1 million.

Top Gainers

Asset Classes

VWO Spells Vanguard Rising

VWO's place high up on the inflows list continues to be a fitting metaphor for the rise of Vanguard.

The Valley Forge, Pa.-based company created by John Bogle is steadily climbing up the ETF League Table, even as Bogle himself rails against the dangers ETFs pose to investors by tempting them to trade frequently enough to seriously harm returns.

In any case, the company's low-cost, pure-beta funds continue to attract investors. Vanguard, the No. 3 U.S. ETF company by assets, hauled in $3.48 billion, while BlackRock's iShares unit added almost $2 billion. State Street Global Advisors, the sponsor behind GLD and the No. 2 ETF firm, meanwhile had outflows of $3.19 billion, the result largely from two of its big equity funds, including SPY.

iShares, the world's biggest ETF firm, has total assets under management of more than $500 billion, while SSgA and Vanguard manage ETF assets of $301 billion and $221 billion, respectively.

League Table

Equities Out Of Favor
The three-least-popular ETFs last month were all U.S.-focused equity funds, which fueled outflows from U.S. equities of $4.12 billion.

The $105 billion SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca:SPY), the world's biggest exchange-traded fund, recorded redemptions of $4.37 billion, while the iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund (NYSEArca:IWM) and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average Trust (NYSEArca:DIA) had outflows of $1.35 billion and $713.8 million, respectively.

As noted, SPY is the biggest ETF in the world, and the most heavily traded and liquid as well.

Biggest Losers

ETF Giants Table

ETF Giants Table

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