New research from Merrill Lynch reports that in the last year, ETF assets increased 46 percent worldwide and 252 new ETFs were launched. Globally, there are more than 665 ETFs totaling $525 billion.
In October, 26 new ETFs were launched in the US alone, increasing assets by $26 billion, State Street reported.
However, Europe’s ETF sector is growing the fastest, says Merrill Lynch. Europe’s ETF assets increased 92 percent from September 2005 – 2006, and the number of funds listed doubled to 285.
In the past year, ETF assets grew 44 percent in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region saw an increase of 22 percent, states Merrill Lynch’s research.
Though ETFs were first traded in 1998, the market did not take off until 2003, and the next phase for ETFs will be traders substituting them for single stocks, says Dan Dolan, creator of sector ETFs based on Standard & Poor’s 500.
Dolan says he predicts the trend will not end anytime in the near future.