It has been another banner year for exchange-traded funds. In fact, on Dec. 16, assets in U.S.-listed ETFs breached the $1 trillion milestone for the first time ever. According to ETF issuer BlackRock, as of Dec. 16 there were 894 ETFs with assets of $887.2 billion from 28 providers. At the end of last year, there were 772 ETFs with assets of $705.5 billion from 29 providers.
In addition to ETFs, BlackRock also says there are currently 185 exchange-traded products (ETPs) with assets of $115.5 billion, from 20 providers. A year ago, there were just 142 ETPs with assets of $88.1 billion from 17 providers.
While ETFs are open-ended funds that can be bought and sold on an exchange, ETPs include other exchange-traded product structures, such as trusts, partnerships, commodity pools and notes.
So, which ETFs are topping the list of winners in 2010? Here are the top 10 performers of the year, as of Monday:
| Ticker | Name | YTD% Gain |
| AGQ | Ultra Silver ProShares | 156.14 |
| BHH | B2B Internet HOLDRs | 107.81 |
| TNA | Direxion Small Cap Bull 3X Shares | 73.82 |
| SLV | iShares Silver Trust | 73.44 |
| SIVR | ETFS Physical Silver Shares | 73.20 |
| DBS | PowerShares DB Silver Fund | 72.28 |
| MWJ | Direxion Daily Mid Cap Bull 3X Shares | 69.59 |
| GDXJ | Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF | 63.01 |
| UKK | ProShares Ultra Russell 2000 Growth | 60.51 |
| IIH | Internet Infrastructure HOLDRs | 57.20 |
As you can see, it was quite a year for leveraged ETFs in the silver, Internet and gold space. Leveraged small-cap funds also scored big in 2010, as did one leveraged midcap fund. And while these funds were the biggest point-gainers, only one of thee funds also made the list of funds with the biggest trading volume.
Here are the top 10 ETFs by average trading volume during the past 90 days:
| Ticker | Name | YTD% Gain/(Loss) | Avg Daily Vol (Past 90 days) |
| SPY | SPDR S&P 500 | 12.50 | 181,283,920 |
| XLF | Financial Select Sector SPDR | 9.65 | 84,068,208 |
| QQQQ | PowerShares QQQ | 19.91 | 71,483,016 |
| EEM | iShares MSCI Emerging Markets | 12.05 | 60,413,108 |
| IWM | iShares Russell 2000 Index | 26.86 | 51,539,944 |
| FAZ | Direxion Financial Bear 3X Shares | (49.56) | 40,198,368 |
| FAS | Direxion Financial Bull 3X Shares | 9.10 | 34,558,560 |
| SDS | ProShares UltraShort S&P 500 | (31.67) | 30,562,368 |
| SLV | iShares Silver Trust | 73.44 | 27,676,904 |
| UNG | United States Natural Gas Fund | (44.54) | 25,190,356 |
No surprise here that the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) is the most heavily traded ETF. It’s also no surprise that the Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF), the PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ), the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) and the iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM) rounded out the top five.
What has been a surprise this year is the widespread buying in silver via the iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which was ninth on the list of traded ETFs by volume. While nothing glitters quite like gold, in 2010, silver has outshined the yellow metal.
