The results of a recent study showed the ETF industry just how much room it has to grow. Cogent Reports, the syndicated division of Market Strategies International, aimed to get a better grip on who owns ETFs and their results exposed that 55% of ETF owners make up only 37% of affluent Americans. That’s a lot of rich money that has yet to adopt the ballooning investment vehicle.
Millennials – unsurprisingly as they are more likely to be early-adopters – led all generations, with nearly four in ten reporting they own an ETF. Gen X investors followed not far behind with one in five saying they owned ETFs. The drop off follows those two younger generations as 2nd Wave Boomers, 1st Wave Boomers, and Silent Generation investors owned ETFs only 14%, 12% and 11% of the time, respectively.
These results are encouraging for issuers with older clients in their base as they clearly have affluent clients whose investment dollars are untapped by their ETF products. Where things got really interesting is the distribution of age range by provider. Some issuers are doing much better courting that “older money” than others.
