The exchange traded fund universe has quickly expanded, but most investors have steered toward strategies that track global equity markets, which leaves the industry an opportunity to further develop and compete for more investment money through fixed-income ETFs.
Looking ahead, BlackRock’s president highlighted the fixed-income ETF space as the next major growth area, Business Insider reports.
“One of the areas which I think is going to grow tremendously, which I think is going to catapult BlackRock into the next few years, is fixed income ETFs,” Rob Kapito, the firm’s president and co-founder, said at an investor conference on Tuesday. “We only right now cover 1% of all the fixed income that’s out there.”
The ETF space also reflects the disparity in investment attitudes toward stocks and bonds. There are currently 2,267 U.S.-listed exchange traded products on the market with close to $3.7 trillion in assets under management, according to XTF data. Digging deeper, there are only 383 U.S.-listed ETFs with $660.5 billion in assets. Fixed-income ETF assets topped $600 billion for the first time last year.