Why ETF Assets Are Growing Faster Than Experts Predicted

With more than $1.4 trillion in flows and more than 1,000 product launches, it’s safe to say the industry is booming.

December 15, 2025

Two years ago, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts predicted global ETF assets would hit $35 trillion by 2035. They’re probably going to come up a bit shy.

With more than $1.4 trillion in global flows, more than 1,000 product launches and US share trading volumes reaching nearly $60 trillion all in this year alone, it’s safe to say ETFs had a pretty successful 2025. Today, global assets are about to top $20 trillion, and that momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down. “At this rate, we’re going to hit our number seven years ahead of schedule,” Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Eric Balchunas said at a conference last week. “Vanguard is going to take $400 billion in this year. That’s $1.5 billion a day. What time is it? It’s 1 o’clock. They’ve already taken in $950 million.”

False Narrative

Despite a noisy market backdrop filled with tariffs and calls to “sell America” or pivot away from the top-heavy S&P 500, most investors didn’t act on those narratives. As a result, the ETF industry surged. “It almost seemed like some people were wish-casting the stock market to fail this year,” Balchunas said.

He argued that ignoring the Mag 7 means also ignoring some 850 other companies that the group has collectively acquired. “YouTube would be, like, the 20th-biggest stock if it were spun off [from Google],” he said, adding that active managers who rotated into lower-valuation stocks and small cap funds underperformed.

Into the Future. Balchunas expects some industry headwinds in 2026, but remains broadly optimistic. One major driver is that many mutual-fund firms are still not offering ETFs. “Look at the flows out of equity mutual funds this year,” he said. “It went from bad to worse. Negative $1 trillion is no joke.” With persistent outflows, more firms are feeling pressure to adopt the recently approved ETF share class, he said.

With the surge of new issuers and product launches — even though many will inevitably close — Balchunas sees continued innovation ahead. “You want an industry to feel creative,” he said. “This is capitalism. It’s weird people dump on this.” As for possible disruptors like direct indexing or tokenized products, Balchunas isn’t concerned. “You can just go on your phone and buy anything under the sun for almost no fee with an ETF,” he said. “It’s hard to disrupt that.”