Best Performing ETFs of 2026

With one half of 2026 in the books, the year is shaping up to be another good one for stocks.

Through the first six months, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) gained 10.2%, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) doubled that with a 20.2% return.

As usual, though, plenty of ETFs did far better than that, and that's what we'll look at here.

A pair of funds ran up more than 900% on the year, and it took a gain north of 535% just to crack the overall top 10. The top of the board is dominated by leveraged products, with only a single nonleveraged fund making the cut. 

But even if you strip the leveraged funds out, the bar is still high. A fund needed a roughly a 100% gain to land in the nonleveraged top 10.

Below we'll take a look at both sides, the nonleveraged winners and the leveraged ones.

A Tanker Fund Leads the Way

On the nonleveraged side, the Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET) sits on top with a 684% gain. I've written about this fund a few times this year. BWET holds crude oil tanker freight futures, contracts tied to the rate for hauling oil by sea, with most of the portfolio tracking very large crude carriers traveling from the Persian Gulf to Asia. 

When the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed earlier this year and tankers were pushed onto longer routes, freight rates went vertical and BWET went with them. 

Oil prices themselves have since come back down as the strait reopened, but tanker futures have held up far better, because the crossing is still fragile, the backlog of stranded ships is only slowly clearing, and war risk premiums remain elevated.

It’s worth remembering that BWET is a trading vehicle rather than a buy-and-hold investment, as freight rates have historically been mean reverting. 

Then It's Semiconductors, All the Way Down

Outside of BWET, every other fund in the nonleveraged top 10 traces back to the AI infrastructure and semiconductor boom. That includes the Invesco Semiconductors ETF (PSI), up 138%, and the VistaShares Artificial Intelligence Supercycle ETF (AIS), up 124%. 

I've written about AIS before. What makes it stand out is that it's an AI fund beating most of the straight semiconductor ETFs while holding a broader basket than chips alone (though it still leans heavily on semiconductor names).

The well-known iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) also made the list at 113%, as did the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) at 106%. EWY's gain came courtesy of its outsized weightings in SK Hynix and Samsung, two of the biggest winners from the super spike in memory prices. 

Investors leaned on EWY as a memory proxy for a good stretch this year, until the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) launched and stole its thunder. Incidentally, DRAM returned 166% from its April 2 launch through June 30, but it's not included on our list since it wasn't trading at the start of the year. 

Outside the Top 10

The pattern continues past the top 10: Semiconductor ETFs keep turning up well down the list, alongside broader AI funds that are themselves stuffed with chip names, plus the occasional Korea or Taiwan fund that's essentially a de facto semiconductor play. 

You have to go all the way to number 17 to hit something a little different: the ProShares Nanotechnology ETF (TINY). 
TINY tracks the Solactive Nanotechnology Index, but—surprise—its top holdings include a number of semiconductor equipment stocks, names like Applied Materials, Lam Research, and ASML. 

A few other names further down are worth calling out. The Nomura Focused Emerging Markets Equity ETF (EMEQ) gained 77%, roughly three times the return of the broader iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG). 

But once again, the performance is being powered by semiconductors. EMEQ holds about a third of its portfolio in TSMC, SK Hynix, and Samsung. 

Other ETFs worth mentioning: the KraneShares SSE STAR Market 50 Index ETF (KSTR), up 72%; the iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (EWT), up 71%; the State Street Galaxy Hedged Digital Asset Ecosystem ETF (HECO), up 71%; the Global X Hydrogen ETF (HYDR), up 67%; and the United States Gasoline Fund (UGA), up 66%.

The Full List

Just as the nonleveraged list of best performing ETFs is dominated by AI stocks, so too is the all-encompassing list.

The overall top 10 is almost entirely 2x long bets on single AI stocks. The Direxion Daily MU Bull 2X Shares (MUU) leads at 959%, followed by the Direxion Daily INTC Bull 2X Shares (LINT) at 842% and the GraniteShares 2x Long DELL Daily ETF (DLLL) at 772%, and on down the line.

Impressively, BWET managed to break into this list too with its 684%, the lone nonleveraged fund keeping pace with a field of geared single-stock products. 

The only other fund in the top 10 that isn't a single-stock bet is the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL), up 537%. It tracks an index rather than one stock, but its triple leverage, grandfathered in from an earlier regulatory era, let it hang with the 2x single-stock crowd.

For the full list of the top-performing ETFs of the first half of 2026, see the tables below.
 

Best Performing ETFs of 2026 (excluding leverage/single stock ETFs)

Best Performing ETFs of 2026 (all U.S.-listed ETFs)