ETF Inflows & Outflows
Performance Leaders & Laggards
Source: ETF Action; flows and performance data as of 4/16/26; performance data excludes leveraged and inverse products
Weekly ETF Reads
VOO Becomes First ETF Ever to Cross $900 Billion in Assets by Sumit Roy
“The fund has long operated as a steady vacuum cleaner for investor capital.”
The Accidental Star Manager by Jeffrey Ptak
“The sponsors of these leveraged single-stock ETFs have shown a flair for picking stocks about to pop.”
Schwab negotiating with 400 fund shops to monetize ETFs by William Johnson
“Unlike mutual funds, which pay various fees for administration, distribution and shelf space, via Sub-TA ,12b-1 and wider revenue-sharing arrangements, sales of ETFs do not make much money for wealth platforms.”
SpaceX & Beyond: Decoding the ETF Paths to Space Investing by Cinthia Murphy
“One of the hottest themes in investing this year has been Space.”
The cheapest bitcoin ETF yet: Morgan Stanley uses 0.14% fee to draw $100 million in first week by Helene Braun
“MSBT has already become the firm’s most successful ETF launch.”
Goldman’s Bitcoin ETF Push Signals Wall Street Taming of Crypto by Isabelle Lee
“Bitcoin has long been derided by traditional investors precisely because it generates no income. Wall Street is now engineering one.”
ETF Post of the Week
One of the more surprising ETF success stories in recent years is the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), the first ETF dedicated exclusively to memory stocks. The fund offers global exposure to a targeted basket of leading memory producers, companies positioned at the center of AI-driven demand for faster, more efficient data processing and storage.
Since launching on April 2nd, DRAM has quickly amassed $1 billion in assets, making it the second most successful ETF launch of 2026 by inflows. It trails only the ProShares GENIUS Money Market ETF (IQMM), whose early growth has been driven largely by its use as a cash management sleeve within other ProShares funds.
As Sumit Roy of ETF.com – who called DRAM “the smartest ETF launch of the year” – explained, the opportunity was hiding in plain sight:
“Memory has become one of the hottest corners of the stock market. Micron Technology is on track to generate profits in the same ballpark as Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft next year, driven by surging demand for high bandwidth memory used in AI data centers. The stock has skyrocketed. But Micron is only one piece of the puzzle. The other two dominant HBM producers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, trade in South Korea and aren’t available in major U.S. semiconductor ETFs like the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) or the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH).
So to get exposure to those stocks, investors poured roughly $6 billion this year into the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY), where Samsung and SK Hynix together make up more than 40% of the fund. EWY had effectively become a proxy for the memory trade—but a watered-down one, diluted by dozens of unrelated Korean stocks. Roundhill saw the gap and pounced. It identified the demand signal buried in EWY’s flows, recognized that no clean U.S.-listed vehicle existed for the memory trade, and built a fund to capture it. That’s sharp product development.”
Extremely sharp product development… and perfect timing.
$DRAM has now hit ~$1B AUM in the first 10 days since launch. Couldn’t have timed the launch any better. https://t.co/wNRv10ukQK pic.twitter.com/RmhjQoOTiS
— Ramp Capital (@RampCapitalLLC) April 17, 2026
ETF Chart of the Week
With tax day now behind us, it’s a good time to shine a light on one of the ETF structure’s most important advantages: tax efficiency.
According to JPMorgan, just 6% of equity ETFs paid a capital gains distribution in 2025, compared to 62% of mutual funds. And when ETFs did distribute gains, they were meaningfully smaller – about 4% of net asset value on average versus more than 10% for mutual funds.
For investors holding mutual funds in taxable accounts, those differences aren’t trivial – they can materially impact after-tax returns.
Now is the perfect time to evaluate whether your portfolio is positioned as tax-efficiently as it could be ahead of next year!
Source: JPMorgan
ETF Prime Podcast
Last week’s ETF Prime featured Chris Davis, Chairman and Portfolio Manager at Davis Advisors, and Todd Sohn, Chief ETF Strategist at Strategas. Chris discussed the current market environment, value investing opportunities, and active ETFs, with a spotlight on the Davis Select U.S. Equity ETF (DUSA), which recently surpassed $1 billion in assets. Todd broke down the latest ETF headlines, including Nasdaq-100 ETF filings from iShares and State Street, the quick success of the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), Morgan Stanley’s move into spot bitcoin ETFs, a potential ticker symbol payday for Tuttle Capital, and more.
Crypto Prime Podcast
David Nicholas, CEO of XFUNDS by Nicholas Wealth, joined me on last week’s Crypto Prime to introduce the Nicholas Bitcoin and Treasuries AfterDark ETF (NGHT), which seeks to capture bitcoin’s overnight return profile. He also highlighted the Bitcoin Tail ETF (BHDG) and Crypto Income ETF (BLOX), and offered perspective on crypto’s role within a broader investment portfolio.
ETF Zoo Podcast
I joined ETF.com’s ETF Zoo podcast this week to discuss private credit, crypto ETFs, how diversification is playing out in 2026, and more. The episode is hosted by Dave Nadig and Sumit Roy, and I was joined by Brian Moriarty of Morningstar and James Seyffart of Bloomberg Intelligence. Enjoy!
