ETF Inflows & Outflows
Performance Leaders & Laggards
Source: ETF Action; flows and performance data as of 9/3/26; performance data excludes leveraged and inverse products
Weekly ETF Reads
ETF Flows Race Toward Record as Investors Deploy Barbell Strategy Against Macro Risks by Cinthia Murphy
“As an industry, we have now exceeded $100 billion in net asset flows for 15 consecutive months.”
Vanguard’s Altruist Deal Could Be a Warning Shot for ETF Platform Fees by Emile Hallez
“I expect Altruist to be the preferred custodian for many asset managers, as they will not be gated with unnecessary platform fees.”
These ETFs Generate the Most Revenue by Sumit Roy
“On the list of the biggest ETF cash cows, only a handful of funds are ultra-cheap. Many more are expensive by ETF standards.”
A $40 Billion ETF Shuffle Helps Foreign Investors Dodge US Taxes by Zachary R. Mider and Denitsa Tsekova
“Investors hopscotch between BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF so they hold neither fund on the date that it confers a right to receive a dividend.”
Looking to Diversify Your U.S.-Heavy Portfolio? Don’t Let the Fund Name Fool You by Debbie Carlson
“You may end up doubling up or not getting anything if you’re not operating from the same definition.”
The capacitor supply chain bottleneck is becoming a bigger AI trade in the market by Eric Rosenbaum
“We are in the midst of thematic tidal wave of ETFs, particularly centered around AI.”
Who Really Owns a White-Label ETF? by Nicholas Phillips
“The modern ETF issuer can assemble a business using fractional expertise.”
Teucrium Wheat Fund by Phil Bak
“WEAT was the first U.S.-listed pure-play wheat ETF.”
Oil ETFs Are Crushing Oil Itself, Thanks to the Futures Curve by Sumit Roy
“Compounded across months of steep backwardation, this type of “roll yield” is the reason for the wide gap between the return on oil and the return on the fund.”
You’re Not Tough Enough to Earn These Huge Returns by Jason Zweig
“612 out of 772 U.S. leveraged ETFs are based on a single asset instead of an index.”
Investors argue against novel ETF label in letters to US SEC by Suzanne McGee
“A definition keyed to today’s list of new asset classes will be obsolete on arrival, because tomorrow’s innovations will fall outside of it.”
Crypto Groups Push SEC for Tailored Rules on Novel ETFs by Jason Nelson
“The Commission should avoid treating all Novel ETFs as a single category because these products raise different market structure, valuation, liquidity, and investor protection considerations.”
ETF Post of the Week
This past week, Vanguard – and many investors and financial advisors – celebrated the 50th anniversary of the First Index Investment Trust, a fund that would ultimately become the Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Greg Davis, President and Chief Investment Officer of Vanguard:
“Fifty years ago, indexing challenged a deeply held assumption—that investors had to beat the market using high-cost active funds to achieve better investment outcomes. By making broad market exposure simple, accessible, and low cost, indexing helped millions of individuals participate in the long-term growth of businesses and financial markets in ways that were previously out of reach.”
It’s not difficult to make the argument that the Vanguard 500 Index Fund is the most consequential product in asset management history. While there were other factors that contributed to the rise of low-cost indexing – including the proliferation of the internet in the early 2000s (which made it much easier for investors to get their hands on fund performance and cost data), the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (when many active managers failed to protect against the sharp decline), and the rise of fee-based advisors (who weren’t incentivized by commissions to recommend expensive, underperforming active mutual funds) – Jack Bogle and Vanguard began to bring the approach to prominence in 1976 by going against the grain of high-cost active management.
(Note: Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg and author of The Bogle Effect, will join me on next week’s ETF Prime to offer his perspective on this milestone.)
This week, Vanguard had the honor of ringing The Opening Bell® at the @NYSE, commemorating 50 years of index investing.
— Vanguard (@Vanguard_Group) September 2, 2026
Fifty years after Jack Bogle helped bring index investing to individual investors, we reflected on its legacy, honored his vision, and recognized its enduring… pic.twitter.com/Xn6S3bYol9
ETF Chart of the Week
Speaking of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (and Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas), Eric notes that when the fund launched, its fee was 0.43%. And nobody really paid any attention. It wasn’t until the fee was lowered to 0.20% that it really started gaining traction. Notably, the first US-listed ETF – the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) – launched right around this time at the same fee. From there, it was a race to the bottom, with Vanguard now offering S&P 500 exposure for 0.03% – and assets ballooning to nearly $1.8 trillion today.
The point in all of this is that “low cost” is every bit as important as “index-based.”
Source: Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas
ETF Prime Podcast
Last week’s ETF Prime featured Maria Rahni, Senior Director & Equities Product Manager at New York Life Investment Management, and Sandra Testani, Head of Global ETF Product & Strategy at American Century. Maria provided a closer look at the NYLIM FTSE International Equity Currency Neutral ETF (HFXI), including its 50% currency hedge, and shared her perspective on the U.S. dollar and international equities. Sandra discussed the continued growth of the firm’s ETF lineup and offered a tour of the financial markets, highlighting several ETFs along the way.
Crypto Prime Podcast
How is the world’s largest asset manager thinking about Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the future of crypto ETFs? Robbie Mitchnick, Global Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, joined me on last week’s Crypto Prime to take you inside the firm’s crypto ETF lineup, discussing everything from investor demand and in-kind creations to what might come next.
