November 14, 2006 at 1:01 am by Tom Lydon
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) combined with mutual funds have total assets at $10 trillion. John Waggoner of USA Today compared the nations entire gross domestic product at about $13.3 trillion. Passing the $10 trillion barrier is huge because in September of 2002 they were only at $6.1 trillion. It also took three decades for mutual funds to grow to a Wall Street main attraction.
ETFs are like mutual funds, but they trade like stocks on exchanges and track broad stock indexes. ETFs currently represent $360 billion, up from $80 billion in 2001. The projected growth is at $1 trillion by 2010, in ETFs alone.
