In nothing short of a pre-Christmas miracle, State Street beat out Vanguard for fund firm with the highest net flows last month.

Ron O'Hanley State Street Global Advisors President and CEO

State Street raked in $20.7 billion in net inflows in November, but, with $20.5 billion, Vanguard wasn't too far behind. BlackRock, including iShares, came in third with $14.7 billion.

When it came to flows growth, State Street also crushed the competition. In November, the Boston-based asset manager saw a flow increase of 4.32 percent—more than 2 and half times the growth of Schwab, which ranked second.

From an industry perspective, only eight of the top fifty firms by assets experienced positive flows. First Eagle, with 0.07 percent growth, was the top-fifty firm with under $100 billion in assets that experienced positive flows.

The post-election stock market rally drove a record $41.9 billion into passively managed U.S. equity funds. Actively managed U.S. stock funds, which experienced outflows for the 32nd consecutive month, didn't enjoy the same boost. However, the blockbuster performance on the passive side still bumped combined flows to $20.7 billion, a level that has not been reached since December 2014.

Morningstar reported these findings as part of its most recent monthly asset flows commentary. Morningstar also published its third quarter report on the landscape for ETF managed portfolios.

The two biggest players in the space, Windhaven and RiverFront, both experienced negative growth in the third quarter. However, other heavy hitters, including BlackRock and Vanguard, both ranked in the top five largest companies in the space, experienced significant quarterly growth, bringing in an additional $1.1 billion and $666 million respectively.

UBS's ETF managed portfolio business experienced the most significant growth by far, with 87 percent growth in assets over last quarter.

The landscape saw some significant additions as well, with Invesco making its managed portfolios debut. Additionally, RiverFront introduced RiverShares model portfolios, which are built using ETFs that are subadvised by the asset manager. According to Morningstar, this marks the first move by a major player in the space "to market models built with proprietary components."  

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