Latest news with #AniketUllal
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Here Are the Most Popular Active ETFs of 2025
The first half of the year has been all about actives. Now, investors have the numbers to prove it. Active ETF launches and inflows hit record highs in the first half of the year, according to a recent Morningstar report. Increasingly complex strategies — like derivative income and collateralized loan obligation funds — are becoming more popular amid ongoing market turbulence, and continue to eat away at mutual fund market share. Active fixed-income ETFs were also favored by investors. 'We've seen a lot of interest in active bond ETFs, particularly from big managers like Vanguard, [who] make it very clear that they plan to compete actively in the active bond space,' said Aniket Ullal, head of ETF research at CFRA. 'So we expect a lot more growth there.' READ ALSO: What 'Crypto Week' Means for ETFs and BlackRock Tops $12T in AUM. State Street Profits Tumble Taking An Active Role There have also been 297 active ETF launches so far this year, with firms like Capital Group, JPMorgan, and T. Rowe Price continuing to build out offerings. Active strategies collectively took in $183 billion in assets, per the report, with derivative income, large blend, and ultrashort bond strategies seeing the most inflows. There was also a jump in the number of ETFs with small- and mid-cap holdings, a trend to look out for, said Stephen Welch, research analyst at Morningstar and author of the report. 'That's obviously a place where capacity matters, so it'd be interesting if there's uptake there, and if firms continue to launch in that area,' he said. The top-performing funds of H1 2025 in terms of net flows were: The JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Inc ETF (JEPQ), which brought in $7.8 billion in assets and is up 2.45% year-to-date. The Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF (JAAA), which attracted $5.2 billion and is up 2.6% year-to-date. The iShares U.S. Thematic Rotation ActiveETF (THRO), which saw $4.5 billion in inflows and is up 6.1% year-to-date. The large-blend, ultrashort bond, derivative-income, and large-value categories accounted for roughly half of all active ETF flows so far this year. Still, buffer ETFs, a recent addition to the space, accounted for more than 100 active fund launches in the past six months. Call of Duty. Covered call strategies are another major category to keep an eye on, said Ullal, exemplified by the popularity — especially among older investors nearing retirement — of products like JPMorgan's JEPQ. 'If you look at those strategies, they tend to underperform in a very rapidly rising market, if you're writing call options on equities,' he said. 'But in a market that's declining or going sideways, it's an effective strategy to generate income.' This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive exclusive news and analysis of the rapidly evolving ETF landscape, built for advisors and capital allocators, subscribe to our free ETF Upside newsletter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trade Fiscal Policy Drive Defense ETF Gains, Record Flows
Trump administration policies are reshaping ETF investor strategies as trade uncertainty and fiscal spending drive record market dispersion while pushing flows toward a historic $1.2 trillion pace, according to the CFRA Research webinar, Trump 2.0: How the Policy Agenda is Impacting ETF Investors. The policy agenda under Trump 2.0 has created distinct market phases since November's election, with ETF performance swinging dramatically around key policy announcements, particularly tariff decisions, said Aniket Ullal, head of ETF research at CFRA Research. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" and evolving trade policy are fundamentally altering how ETF investors approach sector allocation, with defense spending increases and European market dynamics creating new opportunities while tariff uncertainty drives the highest stock dispersion since Covid-19, according to the webinar analysis. Defense ETFs have emerged as clear beneficiaries of increased Pentagon spending, according to research presented during the webinar. The iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) gained 27% year to date, while European defense exposure through the Select STOXX Europe Aerospace & Defense ETF (EUAD) surged 72%, driven by NATO pressure on member countries to boost defense budgets. "Defense and aerospace ETFs have been amongst the best-performing sectors in 2025," Ullal said during the July 9 webinar, noting there are 18 ETFs in the U.S. with varied geographic and sector exposure to the defense theme. The policy changes have made holdings analysis critical, as some defense ETFs include technology exposure to companies like Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR), which became the S&P 500's best performer this year, he added. Trade policy uncertainty has driven stock dispersion to levels not seen since the pandemic, according to the webinar. Within retail sectors, return differentials between companies like Dollar General Corp. (DG) and Dollar Tree Inc. (DLTR) expanded from 6% in 2024 to 20% this year due to varying China exposure levels. "When you have higher stock dispersion, the outcome for active managers tends to be very different," Ullal said, noting increased interest in active ETF strategies. The dollar weakened 7% against trade-weighted currencies, benefiting exporters and international ETF performance, according to John Sonsalla, head of policy and legal research at Washington Analysis, a CFRA business. Both developed and emerging markets outperformed U.S. markets despite limited ETF flows into international strategies. Deregulatory efforts under Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins are expected to accelerate ETF launches, with over 60 managers filing for ETF share classes of mutual funds. The crypto ETF ecosystem expanded to $158 billion in assets across 76 funds, approaching the $178 billion in gold ETF assets. ETF flows remain on track to exceed 2024's record $1.2 trillion, driven primarily by retail investors who "bought the dip" during policy-driven volatility, according to the | © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State Street's PRIV Lands First Daily Inflows in Months
Don't call it a comeback. Inflows into State Street's much anticipated PRIV, the first exchange-traded fund to package public and private investments into a single product, have dried up in notable fashion over the past three months. Well, don't look now, but the SPDR SSGA IG Public & Private Credit ETF pulled in more than $18 million in assets over two days last week, marking the first time there were net inflows in the fund since March 4, according to FactSet data. It's a head-scratching dry spell for a fund that was the toast of the town in late February but has struggled to land a date ever since. 'The inflow is not very substantial in the context of State Street's ETF assets or the overall industry,' said Aniket Ullal, head of ETF research and analytics at CFRA. 'Given the initial anticipation around this launch, it is more surprising that PRIV had zero inflows over a three-month period.' READ ALSO: What's Inside the SEC's Latest Crypto ETF Guidance and JPMorgan Files to Launch Money Market ETF The issue may just be the fund's novel approach, which led the SEC to fire off a sternly worded letter to State Street just hours after its launch in March. The agency listed a number of concerns — like liquidity, valuations and even its name — that State Street said would be addressed the following day. It was a bizarre exchange that may have left some advisors favoring a wait-and-see approach while others hold out for the fund to build a performance track record before testing the waters. PRIV has gained about 1.3% on a total return basis since its Feb. 26 launch, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. That's on par with other ETFs that hold similar corporate debt: The iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF returned 0.9% over that same time. The iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF has gained about 2%. Just Got Ghosted. Funds that combine public and private assets are still very much in their infancy, and it's probably too early to judge success on the whole. Keep in mind, other structures like interval funds or closed end funds may be more attractive to investors for these kinds of private credit opportunities, Ullal said. While ETFs are known for their simplicity and ease of trading, private credit — which doesn't trade daily as public equities do — may simply be better suited to funds that price monthly or quarterly. 'Advisors probably need more time to learn and evaluate this asset class, so it would be premature to conclude at this stage that there will be no advisor interest in the future,' Ullal said. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive exclusive news and analysis of the rapidly evolving ETF landscape, built for advisors and capital allocators, subscribe to our free ETF Upside newsletter.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ETFs are on track for more record-high inflows in 2025
US exchange-traded funds (ETFs) inflows are on track to notch another record high this year, after the first half of 2025 saw $562 billion in inflows. CFRA Research head of ETF research Aniket Ullal joins Market Catalysts with Brad Smith to discuss what to expect from the second half of the year. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts here. In the first half, over half a trillion dollars flowed into ETFs in the US, putting them on pace for a record-breaking year. But guess what? There are some signs that could suggest investors are still cautious. So I want to bring in Aniket Ullal, who is the CFRA research head of ETF research for this week's ETF report, brought to you by Invesco QQQ. Aniket, great to have you back on the program with us. First and foremost, as you're thinking into the second half of the year, how much of the second half might rhyme with the ETF flows that we saw in 1H of 2025? We expect, generally, we've seen every year that the second half of the year tends to be stronger in terms of flows, particularly the fourth quarter. So, you know, if you'd asked me at the beginning of the year, would we repeat this $1.2 trillion of inflows from last year, I would have said no. Now, we've kind of revised our opinion. Flows have been much stronger than we expected, driven, of course, partly by the rebound from the eighth of April that we've seen in the markets, and also partly just driven by secular trends of continuous shift from mutual funds into ETFs. So at this point, I think we're on track to beat the $1.2 trillion of last year. Um, of course, things can, you know, there's always uncertainty out there, but at this point we expect to be at least in the above one or $1.2 trillion for the year in ETF flows. You know, with that in mind, I I wonder how much of that is also driven by investors who who might be looking for either a sector specific approach or just some type of diversification versus stock picking, and how difficult that could be when you do have the uh uh extremely volatile moment like we saw at the beginning of Q2, uh, in the liberation day, and investors really trying to figure out, okay, how can I make sure that I'm diversified and, uh, you know, hedging some of that risk. There are, that's a great point. There are a couple of things that have stood out this year in the first half. One is that it's really retail investors who stayed invested in the market. What we've seen is that retail investors have been patient, they've bought the dip, and that might be partly because they've seen that a lot of the downturn we saw in April was policy driven as opposed to fundamentals driven. And so, you know, they stayed patient. If you look at just very simple proxies, two look at S&P 500 ETFs. There's four ETFs that track the S&P 500. Two of them are more retail oriented and two of them are more institutional oriented. What's interesting is that the retail oriented ones like VOO and SPLG actually have seen consistent inflows every single month this year, whereas the institutional ones have been more volatile in terms of flows. That really shows us that retail investors have been patient, have stayed in the market, and that really is a good sign in terms of, you know, going forward. So that's to your point about investors want wanted to be diversified. We have seen retail investors stay invested. We've also seen more interest in active management. Active ETFs account for less than 10% of ETF assets, but this year have accounted for over a third of the flows. So to your point, I think investors are looking at how some of these events like tariffs affected active management and is there more scope for active management in the ETF space. Aniket, I love in your notes one of the catalysts that you point out here, and it is the SEC approval for ETFs as a share class of mutual funds and what that could do in terms of ETF assets further from here. What is the anticipation there and why is that significant? One of the things that's really surprised everyone in the industry is how open the SEC has been to approving ETFs as a share class of mutual funds. So essentially this is where mutual fund managers can who have an existing mutual fund can now launch an ETF as a share class of their mutual fund as opposed to an entirely separate product. This could open up a lot of move a lot more assets from mutual fund space into the ETF space. It also opens up from the asset managers perspective a new channel where you can offer ETFs to a young, generally ETF investors tend to be, you know, a kind of younger demographic. So both from the asset managers point of view and the investors point of view, this could be a big growth area and could see could give a further boost to ETF assets. I think the challenge here is going to be in the implementation because you've got broker dealers and other intermediaries sitting in the middle. They need to make changes to really implement this. So we think even if the SEC approves this, it's going to be a few months before broker dealers are ready to really implement ETFs as a share class. Interesting. Okay. And so just lastly, while we have you here, we'd love to get your outlook for ETFs, especially tied to commodities or even digital currencies. Sure. I mean, we've, of course, seen gold be, um, you know, strong this year. It's really a bunch of things. One is, we've had a weaker dollar. A weaker dollar generally results in stronger gold demand because demand tends to come from emerging markets on the retail side. We've also seen central bank demand continue to be strong, partly because we think central banks want to diversify away from, um, you know, just holding dollar dollar assets and, you know, and treasuries, and want to be more in gold. So that's really driving gold demand. Uh, on on Bitcoin, of course, we're seeing a risk on trade right now. So demand for Bitcoin continues to be strong. IBIT's been one of the best and most successful ETFs, uh, this year so far. Wow. Aniket, great to have you here. Great for the insights as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Israel-Iran Conflict Pushes Shipping, Defense ETFs Higher
Shipping ETFs jumped and Israeli funds slipped after Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear-enrichment facilities and other sites sparked concerns about the region's stability and ocean transit costs surged. The Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF (BWET), which tracks futures contracts in the crude-oil-shipping market, jumped 11%. The Breakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF (BDRY), which provides exposure to ocean transit of dry-bulk transport for products like iron ore, coal and grain, jumped 1.2%. Shipping rates surged on worries that fighting in the Middle East would create havoc in the Strait of Hormuz, a globally critical oil transit route, causing ships to reroute and take longer journeys. Very large crude carrier rates for Middle East to Asia routes jumped 40% this morning as ships planned routes that avoided Iranian waters, according to FXEmpire. Crude oil prices jumped, pushing the United States Oil Fund LP (USO) up 5.8%, while defense ETFs like the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) and Select STOXX Europe Aerospace & Defense ETF (EUAD) advanced. Broad-market ETFs like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) slipped. 'Historically, we have seen that political instability in the Middle East that potentially impacts energy supply or transportation can cause ETFs like BWET to react,' said Aniket Ullal, head of ETF research & analytics at CFRA. BWET jumped 21% between October 2023 and April 2024 when the Houthi rebels in Yemen began attacking ships in the Red Sea, he said. 'Investors may be concerned that Israel's recent preemptive strike on Iran may impact energy markets and transportation through the Red Sea, especially if nonstate actors like the Houthis are drawn into the conflict,' he explained. Israel-focused ETFs fell after the attack, which Israel launched after Iran threatened to increase its nuclear-enrichment program. The ongoing attacks killed high-ranking military officials, including Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Israel-focused ETFs—Source: FactSet The iShares MSCI Israel ETF (EIS) lost 1.2%, while the ARK Israel Innovative Technology ETF (IZRL) fell 1.1%.Permalink | © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved Sign in to access your portfolio
