Morningstar: Active ETF Launches, Assets Take Off in H1
- Morningstar counted 295 active ETF launches during the first half of the year.
- Active ETFs overall took in $183 billion in assets.
Active exchange-traded funds have taken off in recent years, and the first half of 2025 was no different. In a new report, Morningstar counted 295 launches, with active ETFs overall taking in $183 billion in assets. Last year, there were 510 active ETF launches.
A lot of firms are seeing outflows when it comes to their legacy mutual funds because those funds “have been around for a long time, investors are older, they're retiring, they’re in that window where they're taking distributions,” Stephen Welch, a senior manager research analyst of equity strategies for Morningstar, told etf.com. Active ETFs “seem to be the new vehicle choice that investors are interested in.”
Active ETF Launches By Firm
Big active shops continued to add to their active ETF lineups. For instance, Capital Group, which introduced four active ETFs in the first half of the year, is taking the approach of building out its entire active ETF offering suite for investors, Welch said. “They’re more vehicle agnostic, so you’ve seen them continue to build out their active ETF lineup around what they’ve already been focusing on within mutual funds and other vehicles,” he added.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan, which also debuted four active ETFs in 2025 so far, has had a lot of success with its equity and income products.
“Most firms are taking the approach of seeing where there’s interest and what they’d be good at,” Welch said.
First Trust, Innovator and Calamos led the pack with 21, 17 and 15 new active funds, respectively. But JPMorgan, Dimensional and Capital Group were the top firms by active ETF net flows: $25.5 billion, $21.1 billion and $18.3 billion, respectively.
Top Categories and Funds
In terms of total estimated net flows, active ETFs in the “derivative income” category—which tend to use an options overlay to generate income—had the top estimated net flows of all the types of active ETFs the research firm considered. Next up were large blend funds, followed by ultra-short bond and large value funds.
Of note, more than 100 of the new ETFs are buffer ETFs, according to the report.
When it comes to active ETFs with the highest net flows in 2025, the JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Inc ETF (JEPQ), the Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF (JAAA) and the iShares U.S. Thematic Rotation Active ETF (THRO) took the top spots.
As for whether we should expect to continue to see new launches, Welch said most likely.
“But there is a cost to launching active ETFs,” he added. “If you don't see an uptick in assets under management, firms could start to close these offerings.”
