After losing momentum over 2016 in the separate accounts space, exchange traded fund managed portfolios gained a greater following over the first quarter this year.
As of the end of the first quarter 2017, there were 950 ETF managed portfolio strategies from 169 firms with total assets of $99.7 billion, up 17.6% since the fourth quarter of 2016, according to Morningstar data.
A significant increase in assets – approximately $8.8 billion of the $14.9 billion quarter-over-quarter increase – was driven by the addition of new strategies, like Columbia, onto the Morningstar database, which suggests that more players are entering the separate accounts space with new ETF managed portfolio strategies.
Furthermore, the three largest ETF providers now occupy three of the five top spots in the ETF managed portfolio landscape. Vanguard, RiverFront, State Street and BlackRock added a collective $2.3 billion in assets to strategies that had been previously included in Morningstar’s database.
The largest ETF managed portfolios assets by firms as of the end of March 2017 include Windhaven Investment Managed $8.46 million, Vanguard Advisors $6.40 million, RiverFront Investment Group $5.83 million, State Street Global Advisors $5.54 million and BlackRock $5.01 million.