At the same time, plain vanilla strategies fell short of expectations, and there was outsize interest in more tactical and thematic funds, such as Invesco’s QQQ, which returned to the top 10 most popular ETFs after nine years of absence, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which also came back into the top 10 after four years of absence, and ARK, Kashner said.
In addition, fixed income had its best year ever in the United States.
“Between fixed income and the interest in gold, it took equities’ percentage of the overall flows below 50% for the first time,” Kashner said.
There were also some new ETF structures to debut in 2020, including active nontransparent ETFs. There are now 15 of these products, with combined assets of just under $1 billion as of the end of the year, she said.
There was increased interest in thematic ETFs as well. Kashner counts 114 thematic ETFs that were available in the market in 2020, but only eight of those brought in flows over $1 billion, while 29 actually saw outflows or closed down.
“It’s really easy to focus on the success stories,” such as work-from-home, telemedicine, sports betting, renewable energy and airlines, she said. “There are dozens and dozens and dozens that really didn’t get the love. It’s a combination of luck and timing.”
This report from the virtual Women in ETFs conference from earlier this year originally appeared on our sister site, Wealthmanagement.com here.