ETF Watch: 2016 Launches Fall Behind

After keeping pace through much of the first half, it looks like the number of launches year-to-date has fallen behind 2015, which was a record-breaking year with regard to the number of launches. There were 284 launches last year.

As of June 22, just about a month ago, both 2016 and 2015 had seen 112 launches, but 2016 had 133 launches as of yesterday. Last year, by the same date, there had been 152 launches. That said, the circumstances were a bit unusual. In that intervening month, two firms rolled out a significant number of funds.

ProShares rolled out a total of eight funds, including inverse, leveraged and currency hedged, while iShares launched 11 currency-hedged international ETFs. Of course the gap is not that great, and launches could pick up this year.

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected].