The ETF industry has witnessed explosive growth buoyed by the rise in “thematic investing” and craze for “smart beta.” It has seen 84 launches and 22 closures so far this year, taking the total number of ETFs to 2,182 and total assets to nearly $3.43 billion in the U.S. market.
The rapid growth can be traced back to unique strategies, creativity, transparency, diversification benefits, enhanced tax competences, low turnover and low cost. Additionally, both existing and new issuers are active in bringing innovative products to the market, carving a highly specialized theme (or niche investment) focusing on a narrow corner.
Below we highlight four ETFs that have been able to pull in over $100 million in AUM and have huge potential to dominate the market in the coming months.
Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK – Free Report)
This is an actively managed ETF providing investors global exposure to a basket of the leading companies engaged in advancing the blockchain-based technology and other distributed ledger technologies. It has pulled in about $170.3 million in its assets since its launch on Jan 17. The product holds a basket of 50 stocks, with none of the securities making up for more than 6% of assets. American firms dominate with about 58% of the portfolio, followed by Asia (28.7%) and Europe (11.1%). This new fund has an expense ratio of 0.70%.
