This Tuesday will mark the anniversary of last year’s US stock market low. Since then the market has rallied by 70 percent in a recovery only slightly less suspicious than a Madoff hedge fund.

A year ago uncertainty hung over the Dow and S&P 500 with the possibility of an economic depression and the potential nationalization of the entire banking system. But what has happened since then did not fall so far short of this extreme.

After enjoying a record year in 2010, many in the ETF industry were disappointed when January figures revealed a material decline in total assets, breaking an impressive string of month-over-month expansion. The latest ETF statistics from the National Stock Exchange are out, and February results were more typical of the industry’s recent growth. Total ETF assets increased from about $745 billion to $765 billion, while monthly cash inflows totaled $5.4 billion.
The rebound started at the top of the product list, as the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY), which saw outflows of about $16 billion in January, took in $1.5 billion in cash last month. SPY, which now has over $70 billion in assets, remains the largest ETF by a wide margin over GLD, which comes in at just under $40 billion. In aggregate, 363 ETPs saw cash inflows, while 267 saw outflows on the month.

One fund that continues to lose ground is the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (EEM), which saw $2.4 billion in outflows on the month. EEM’s primary competitor, the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) took in $1.1 billion, making it the sixth largest U.S.-listed ETF by assets and drawing it closer in size to its still-much-larger rival.