Vanguard is neck-and-neck with BlackRock’s (NYSE: BLK) iShares for the best-selling ETF family in 2012 as the fund company enjoys its best year ever.
“The $130.4 billion in deposits in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that Vanguard has taken in through November is the most ever for the industry,” Bloomberg News reports.
Vanguard is the third-largest ETF provider with $236 billion through the end of November, or about 18% market share, according to Morningstar, while iShares controls $539 billion and State Street (NYSE: STT) manages $318 billion.
Year to date, Vanguard has attracted ETF inflows of $46.9 billion and iShares has brought in $47.2 billion.
“Now the market is watching—with equal parts gratitude and trepidation—the rapid escalation of the ‘Vanguard effect.’ It’s asymmetric warfare, as Vanguard’s sole ownership and constituency is its fundholders, the savings it wrings from its buying power are passed on to them, not to shareholders or partners,” Bloomberg reports.