It could be said that the ETF business has been a 20 year “overnight” success. Since the introduction of the first ETF back in 1993, we have seen a global expansion across multiple Exchanges and a diverse product offering.
As at the end of July 2013, there were 3,441 ETFs, with 7,792 listings, assets of over US$2bn from 185 Providers on 55 Exchanges (Source:ETFGI).
S&P Dow Jones Indices has been at the forefront of this phenomena licensing the underlying index for the very first ETF SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). Currently there are approximately US$595bn in ETFs linked to S&P Dow Jones Indices (Source:ETFGI).