SPY ETF Big Exits Signal Shift in Sentiment and Profit Taking

American exchange-traded funds have seen large exits in recent weeks to signal a shift from cyclical funds to safer assets, Yahoo! reported.

Investors removed $3.9 billion from the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, and $322 million from the iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Value ETF on Wednesday. Over half of the $1.2 billion gains of the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF was also erased in the last week.

Analysts believe investors went profit-taking and have started to shift back to more growth-oriented funds due to global economic growth concerns, along with fixed-income ETFs.

In the options market, SPY has yet to recover from its fall to a two-year low in June, while volumes for the ProShares UltraPro Short S&P 500 ETF burst to hit 50,000 calls expiring July 16 on Wednesday.

The ETF trades came ahead of the market swoon in Wall Street on early Thursday. SPY is down 1.06%, IJS is down 0.84%, TLT, is up 0.43%, and  SPXU is up 3.25%.