JPMorgan was late into the ETF game as the money manager historically dabbled in active management and its alternatives business, which puzzled many industry observers as the company’s $2 trillion in assets and wealth management business covers services for a range of U.S. financial advisors and retail investors whom have exhibited increased demand for ETFs since the financial crisis.
“JPMorgan has the resources and expertise to be a significant competitor in the ETF industry but it has allowed its rivals to build a lead that will require intensive efforts to recover,” Deborah Fuhr, co-founder of ETFGI, told the Financial Times.
In a saturated market, JPMorgan is forgoing the broad beta-index approach and may be focusing more on targeted investment opportunities.
“It is not going for vanilla ETFs. This allows JPMorgan to retain some pricing power. Their model is different from Charles Schwab, which offers simple ETFs at bargain basement fees to compete with BlackRock and Vanguard,” Warren Miller, founder of Flowspring, told FT.
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