Vanguard surged ahead of BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) in the 2020 battle among exchange-traded fund providers to gain new business, attracting ETF inflows of $90.4 billion in the first half of the year, 105% higher than the same period last year, the Financial Times reported over the weekend, citing London-based consultancy ETFGI.
BlackRock saw ETF inflows of $60.4 billion in the same time, 5.3% lower on the same period last year.
Some rival big firms had tough half years, including Invesco (NYSE:IVZ), where ETF inflows crashed 61% to $4.9 billion, and Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) where new ETF business also fell 61% to $4.7 billion. WisdomTree (NASDAQ:WETF) registered net outflows of $600 million in the first half.
JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), a relative newcomer to the ETF industry, entering in 2017, saw momentum build with inflows up 28.5% to $8.8 billion between January and June.
Despite the massive inflows, global ETF assets (funds and products) are down 1.4% this year, totaling $6.3 trillion at the end of June.
Gold ETFs were among the most attractive to investors who poured $40 billion into metal-centric exchange-traded funds, topping the full-year record of $23 billion posted in 2016. North American-based gold ETFs took in 80% of those flows.
