Investors piled into finance-focused exchange-traded funds in July and moved out of funds that concentrate on the basic materials, consumer non-cyclicals and energy sectors.

Financial ETFs recorded net inflows of $2.23 billion in July, which was up from $1.16 billion in June, and a strong reversal from May when they experienced outflows of $2.00 billion.

Strong second-quarter earnings results, which followed a series of announcements from financial companies that they plan to return more money to shareholders via dividend increases and share repurchases, boosted financial ETFs in July, according to Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA.

Among all ETFs, the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) was sixth in net inflows for July at $1.36 billion. The largest components of XLF are common shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., as well as class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Excluding financials, sector ETFs had net outflows of $713.9 million in July, led by nearly $1 billion of redemptions in basic materials.

Click here for a September 2016 article on financial ETFs. Click here for a template to view asset manager peer comparisons.