From the Associated Press...

Assets invested in exchange-traded funds rose by 9.4 percent to $383.3 billion in October from $350.3 billion in September.

Exchange traded funds, or ETFs, are baskets of stocks, fixed-income securities, or other assets that trade like individual stocks. ETFs are often touted for their relatively low costs and tax efficiency.

Total assets in exchange traded funds were up about 29 percent from the end of last year, when they totaled about $296 billion, according to a monthly report from the Investment Company Institute, a mutual-fund industry trade group.

There were a total of 315 ETFs in October, of which 228 tracked domestic stock indexes with assets of $268 billion; 81 ETFs tracked international equity indexes with assets of $95.4 billion; and six tracked bond indexes with assets of $19.9 billion.

The value of net issuance of ETF shares was $19.8 billion in October, up from net redemptions of $1.4 billion in September.

Year to date through October, the value of ETF shares issued outweighed the value of those redeemed by $53.9 billion. In the same period a year earlier, the value of ETF shares issued outweighed the value of those redeemed by about $33.2 billion.