\n<\/p>\n
As ETF launches proliferate, innovative structures are emerging\u2014such as buffer funds that use derivatives to mitigate the impact of market downturns, active ETFs replicating the strategies of star managers like Nouriel Roubini, FundStrat\u2019s Tom Lee, BlackRock\u2019s Rick Rieder, and GMO\u2019s Jeremy Grantham, as well as triple-leveraged ETFs and ETFs investing in alternative assets like cryptocurrency and private markets.<\/p>\n
Balchunas notes that growth in the crypto space has been especially explosive. \u201cBlackRock\u2019s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF attracted $70 billion in assets in 341 days. It\u2019s the fastest-growing ETF ever to exist,\u201d he says. \u201cBlackRock already is the second biggest holder of Bitcoin on planet Earth, but by 2026, they\u2019re going to have more Bitcoin than Satoshi, the founder of Bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retail adoption of ETFs remains lower in Europe than in the U.S., but the gap is closing quickly. German savings plans have fueled widespread retail participation, with ownership growing by 33% in the past year and spreading into new markets. The number of savings plan accounts outside Germany more than doubled from 2023 to 2024. Julius Weller, Vice President, Broker at Scalable Capital, explained, \u201cOur strategy is to have any ETF that could be sold to European retail clients under usage on the platform. We will make it savings plan eligible, and savings plans will always be cost-free.\u201d<\/p>\n
Investment education is especially crucial for Europe\u2019s largely younger base of new investors. Selina Kirby, Head of Digital and Execution Only, UK Client Group at Vanguard, highlights that \u201c80% of new investors are under 45 and unfamiliar with even basic investment concepts like diversification and risk\/reward trade-offs.\u201d She adds, \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a huge growth in trusting of social media and AI, whether we like it or not. Everyone\u2019s got advice in their pocket now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, thematic investing is one of the most dynamic areas of the market, as investors evolve and diversify outside traditional sector or industry categories. As Miriam Breen, Head of Business Development UK and Ireland, ETF and Index at BNP Paribas Asset Management, explains, \u201cThey don\u2019t want to just invest in the hot new thing. They\u2019re looking for returns, they\u2019re looking for relevance, and they\u2019re looking for real-world resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bloomberg Intelligence, which delivers interactive data, tools and research across industries and global markets, tracks 33 thematic baskets, looking beyond industry classifications to track the themes that drive company revenues. The largest, most diversified companies may belong in more than one basket.<\/p>\n
This approach enables Bloomberg to capture themes such as Global Modern Defense. Defense spending in Europe has increased dramatically in recent years, due to Russian aggression and other factors. That makes this a hot category right now, but Dougherty says it was compelling even before the surge in military budgets. \u201cWhen we built modern defense, we were seeing a big modernization trend within defense budgets, which we really wanted to capture,\u201d says Dougherty.<\/p>\n
European markets are more fragmented than the U.S. market, spanning multiple countries, exchanges and currencies. \u201cWe have something like 13,500 listings in Europe, really dwarfing the number of products in the US with a much smaller asset base,\u201d says Slawomir Rzeszotko, \u00a0head of institutional sales and trading for Europe and Asia at Jane Street \u201cWhy do we have so many listings, and why do we have so many products? Well, because we are dealing with a much more diverse set of customers, right, from retail to institutional, from people based in different currency regimes and expecting income or distributing class share classes,\u201d adds Rzeszotko.<\/p>\n
With so many products, many at smaller asset sizes, Gregoire Blanc, Global Head of Capital Markets at Amundi cautions that it\u2019s a mistake to judge ETFs by the same standards as single stocks; even smaller, less frequently traded ETFs can provide liquidity if their underlying assets trade readily.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily a negative to see no volume traded, small AUM ETF,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s illiquid. It just means no one\u2019s trading it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Industry leaders emphasize that ETFs are more than just tools for liquidity\u2014they have become central to investment, trading, portfolio construction, and capital formation. \u201cThe reason ETFs are such an incredible tool is because they are everything. They\u2019re an investment tool, they\u2019re a trading tool, they\u2019re a portfolio construction tool, they\u2019re a cash equity monetization tool,\u201d Rachel Lord, Head of International at BlackRock, explains.<\/p>\n
According to Lord in recent months thinks markets reacted mostly to heated rhetoric, rather than dramatic shifts in U.S. \u2013 European relations. \u201cIf you just step back and don\u2019t think about the language, the messaging is pretty simple. Europe needs to pay for its own defense. America needs to stop exporting all its manufacturing capabilities and therefore lose control of its supply chain,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you can distill it into its simplest parts, it becomes clear that Western Europe\u2019s developed markets and America are actually much more aligned than the media would like us to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, she emphasized that these changes will require new forms of capital, with European markets needing to expand and Capital Markets Union offering a potential catalyst.<\/p>\n
ETFs can play an important role in that, providing a low-cost, liquid mechanism for individuals and institutions to invest in Europe\u2019s future. According to Lord, private market ETFs will be critical in moving what she calls \u201ca wall of money\u201d into sectors like infrastructure spending, energy resilience spending, data centers and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Interested to see more insights from ETFs in Depth conference. Click here<\/p>\n
Insights in this article are based on panels and fireside discussions at the Bloomberg ETFs in Depth event held in London in July 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n The data and other information included in this publication is for illustrative purposes only, available \u201cas is\u201d, non-binding and constitutes the provision of factual information, rather than financial product advice.\u00a0 BLOOMBERG and BLOOMBERG INDICES (the \u201cIndices\u201d) are trademarks or service marks of Bloomberg Finance L.P. (\u201cBFLP\u201d). BFLP and its affiliates, including BISL, the administrator of the Indices, or their licensors own all proprietary rights in the Indices. Bloomberg L.P. (\u201cBLP\u201d) or one of its subsidiaries provides BFLP, BISL and its subsidiaries with global marketing and operational support and service. Certain features, functions, products and services are available only to sophisticated investors and only where permitted. Bloomberg (as defined below) does not approve or endorse these materials or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information herein, nor does Bloomberg make any warranty, express or implied, as to the results to be obtained therefrom, and, to the maximum extent allowed by law, Bloomberg shall not have any liability or responsibility for injury or damages arising in connection therewith. Nothing in the Services or Indices shall constitute or be construed as an offering of financial instruments by Bloomberg, or as investment advice or investment recommendations (i.e., recommendations as to whether or not to \u201cbuy\u201d, \u201csell\u201d, \u201chold\u201d, or to enter or not to enter into any other transaction involving any specific interest or interests) by Bloomberg. Information available via the Index should not be considered as information sufficient upon which to base an investment decision. All information provided by the Index or in this publication is impersonal and not tailored to the needs of any person, entity or group of persons. Absence of any trademark or service mark from this list does not waive Bloomberg\u2019s intellectual property rights in that name, mark or logo.\u00a0 For the purposes of this publication, Bloomberg includes BLP, BFLP, BISL and\/or their affiliates.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n BISL is registered in England and Wales under registered number 08934023 and has its registered office at 3 Queen Victoria Street, London, England, EC4N 4TQ. BISL is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as a benchmark administrator.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 2025 Bloomberg. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As ETF launches proliferate, innovative structures are emerging\u2014such as buffer funds that use derivatives to mitigate the impact of market downturns, active ETFs replicating the strategies of star managers like Nouriel Roubini, FundStrat\u2019s Tom Lee, BlackRock\u2019s Rick Rieder, and GMO\u2019s Jeremy Grantham, as well as triple-leveraged ETFs and ETFs investing in alternative assets like cryptocurrency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[18083,715,2593,12239,12314,264],"class_list":{"0":"post-30938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-etf","9":"tag-european","10":"tag-expansion","11":"tag-insights","12":"tag-powering","13":"tag-whats"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisclaimer\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h5>\n<\/p>\n