The ETF universe has come a long way from its niche investment status to everyday, mainstream status.
“ETFs have gone from sort of a fringe element, right, like an inhabitant of misfit toys, to being very mainstream,” Ben Johnson, Director of Global ETF Research for Morningstar, said at the recent Morningstar ETF Conference. “We’ve gone from about $800 billion worth of assets in ETFs to now in excess of $3 trillion. ETFs have made it.”
There are now 2,096 U.S.-listed exchange traded products on the market from 120 fund sponsors across 142 index providers listed on four different exchanges with $3.3 trillion in assets under management, according to XTF data. So far this year, U.S.-listed ETPs have attracted $411.5 billion in net inflows, already surpassing overall ETF inflows for all of 2016.