Daily ETF Watch: 65 Funds Launched YTD
Activity in the ETF industry remains robust, with the pace of launches in 2015 a bit higher than last year.
There’s not a lot going on in the ETF space in terms of launches and filings today, so now seems like a good time to take a look at where the ETF industry stands today compared with the start of the year and this time last year.
As of yesterday, with the launch of five new funds, 65 exchange-traded funds had launched in the U.S. year-to-date. That’s seven more than the 58 that had launched during the same time period last year, indicating the ETF industry is still in a phase of expansion. Announced closures for 2015 so far stand at 11.
Total assets in ETFs currently stand at $2.128 trillion, $3 billion short of an all-time high of the $2.131 trillion reached on March 20 of this year. That’s also a $122 billion, or 6 percent, increase from the start of the year, according to data compiled by ETF.com.
At the same time, the S&P 500 is up 1.3 percent year-to-date, meaning most of the increase in assets is coming from inflows rather than price appreciation.
With nearly three-quarters still left to go in the year, the ETF industry is on track to break its previous launch records, but it’s early days yet and anything could happen. In other words, today may seem like a calm day, but the ETF continues to march forward at a rapid rate.