In this week of shocking international news, our job is to bring you that news through the ETF filter. The ETF news has all been about extraordinary inflows of assets at the beginning of this year with predictions that the year will prove to be another mast year for the sector.
We don’t know whether these predictions have now been affected by world events, but what we do know is that the ingenuity, adaptability and gift of innovation in the ETF industry will see issuers increasingly producing products that reflect our current reality – ETFs based on defence, drones, rising oil and gas prices and that traditional harbour in times of difficult markets, gold.
Two observations from me this week: we can report that the number of US launches, as featured in our launches’ column sponsored by STOXX, has significantly dropped, maybe reflecting issuer concerns that geopolitical tensions will and are impacting markets.
We were also interested to read the Bloomberg report that the SEC has requested certain US firms to not launch ETF products leveraged at 3x, 4x or 5x.
This week saw State Street Investment Management reporting that US-listed ETFs registered USD173 billion of inflows in February – leading to the best start to a year with USD334 billion of inflows to start 2026. At the time, State Street wrote that this pace could signal a potential USD2 trillion of net new assets for the full year.
PwC published its annual ETF report this week, again before this week’s news had impacted, which found that more than a third of respondents to PwC’s global 2026 ETF survey expect global ETF assets under management (AuM) to reach USD35 trillion or higher by June 2030, more than doubling ETF assets over the next five years.
Nearly 70 per cent believes that global ETF AuM will reach at least USD30 trillion by the end of the decade.
Another firm which is reporting huge growth is Dimensional Fund Advisors which recently announced it had gone past the USD1 trillion milestone in assets under management. Part of those assets are the over USD265 billion in assets in ETFs, a product they added to their roster just over five years ago.
We spoke to Wes Crill, Senior Client Solutions Director & VP at Dimensional, who says: “The impetus to launch ETFs was the same as we have for mutual funds in that we have always looked to see what the needs of our clients are,” he says. “We try to figure out what is a long-term need that our client will have that will stand the test of time.”
Nominations are now open for the fourth outing of our popular Canadian ETF awards, again to be held at the Toronto Stock Exchange market close ceremony at the end of May. Get your nominations in now for your favourite ETF service providers in the Canadian ETF industry. Voting will open for Canadian short-listed ETF service providers and ETF issuers, drawn from data provided by Trackinsight, on 30th March.
Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor
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