ETF Inflows & Outflows
Performance Leaders & Laggards
Source: ETF Action; flows and performance data as of 9/10/26; performance data excludes leveraged and inverse products
Weekly ETF Reads
Wall Street’s Leveraged ETF Push Gets New Twist With Hourly Bets by Isabelle Lee
“For an active trader, that means the leverage is recalibrated closer to the moment the trade is made. It also means gains and losses begin compounding again and again within the same session.”
This ETF Paid Out Big. Its Total Returns Tell Another Story by Amy C. Arnott
“More money has been lost reaching for yield than at the point of a gun.”
ETFs Hit Warp Speed: Launches Blow Past 1,000 by Kirsten Chang
“Already, 17 ETFs have crossed the $1 billion mark in total AUM.”
(Note: VettaFi’s Kirsten Chang joined me on last week’s ETF Prime to talk about the record pace of ETF launches and spotlight several new products.)
A University’s Distaste for Hedge Funds Created This New ETF. It’s Still Risky. by Paul R. La Monica
“Hedge funds are a fantastic business if you’re on Wall Street, and you can charge a great fee.”
How Lido Advisors became subadvisor to VanEck’s first buffer ETF by Leo Almazora
“ETFs let us do things that aren’t always possible in other vehicles – more efficiently, and generally with better tax treatment.”
Thematic ETFs Are Popular Again. Yikes. by Jeffrey Ptak
“Most of the time, inflows coincided with recent gains and outflows with losses.”
First staked ETF tied to Tron hits the US markets on Wednesday by Sarah Wynn
“TRX has a market capitalization of $32.1 billion and is the eighth-largest crypto.”
Bitwise to Close Dogecoin ETF Before Its First Anniversary by Jason Nelson
“The Dogecoin ETF arrived during a wave of crypto fund launches as issuers expanded beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum into products tracking other tokens.”
ETF Post of the Week
Last week, I highlighted the 50th anniversary of the First Index Investment Trust, a fund that would ultimately become the Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas notes that as Vanguard marks this milestone, the firm’s share of U.S. fund assets has actually begun to decline. Ironically, that may be the clearest sign yet that Vanguard founder John Bogle’s mission succeeded:
“If our competitors will finally compete on lower price and higher value, rather than on higher spending on dubious marketing, they will make the mutual fund world even more competitive. The first sign that Vanguard’s mission has created a better world for the investor will be when our market share begins to erode.”
(Note: Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg and author of The Bogle Effect, joined me on last week’s ETF Prime to discuss Vanguard’s declining market share and what John Bogle would think of the ETF industry today. You can watch that conversation below.)
This is the most underrated little known Bogle quote that I dug up reading one of his least read books. This guy said this when Vgrd had like 2% share and index funds had 0.1% of the aum they have today. Talk about vision (and bit of insanity, what CEO ever rooted for their mkt… pic.twitter.com/y34QYRw26k
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) September 9, 2026
ETF Chart of the Week
I continue to be fascinated by investor interest in the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), which remains mired in a 40%+ drawdown since August 2020. Remarkably, this ETF has taken in nearly $50 billion in new money during this time. Investors have been unable to resist the call of the duration siren. Even this year, while TLT is down more than 4%, it’s vacuumed up nearly $2.5 billion.
Fun fact: Over the past 15 years, TLT has generated a barely positive TOTAL return.
ETF Prime Podcast
Last week’s ETF Prime featured Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg and author of The Bogle Effect, and Kirsten Chang, Senior Industry Analyst at VettaFi. Eric reflected on the 50th anniversary of Vanguard’s first index fund and its transformative impact on investors and the asset management industry. Kirsten spotlighted several recent launches, including the State Street SPDR UC Investments 90/10 Endowment Strategy Index ETF (USBG) and the ARK Active Autocallable Income ETF (ARKY).
