U.S. Exchange-Traded Fund Markets 2023
Product Development Opportunities for a Maturing Structure
Explore ETF Product Innovation
- Analyze issuer buildout of sustainable and thematic ETF product lines
- Evaluate issuer use of index providers, including smaller firms and self-indexing
- Review enhanced coverage of direct channel and institutional use of ETFs
- Review ETF product distribution trends, including sales organizational structures and strategic partnerships with intermediaries
- Gain insight into the Canadian ETF market, strategic product development plans, distribution channel sizing, and challenges surrounding growth and distribution
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Summary
Examine the U.S. exchange-traded product industry from the perspective of existing issuers and new entrants, as well as those using their products, including advisors, institutions, and households. Monitor ongoing industry trends such as fee compression, the shift toward a wider variety of products, including actively managed equity (transparent and semi-transparent) and fixed-income ETFs, and identify other product trends.
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A Note from the Author
Institutional Uptake of ETFs is Lagging

Daniil Shapiro, CFA
Director, Cerulli Associates
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Daniil Shapiro, CFA
Director, Cerulli Associates
Daniil is part of Cerulli’s Product Development practice, where he works on the identification, analysis, and reporting of asset management industry trends with a focus on exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and alternative investments.
Prior to joining Cerulli Associates, Daniil was part of the Product Management and Business Intelligence teams with the MainStay Funds, part of New York Life Investment Management. At MainStay, Daniil supported sales efforts via fund and ETF competitive analysis, product research, and development of marketing materials, as well as performance reporting. Before New York Life, Daniil was part of the risk management practice at Accenture, and held risk and compliance roles at HSBC’s investment bank.
Full biography here.
Despite collectively owning nearly $1.3 trillion in exchange-traded fund (ETF) assets, institutions (e.g., insurance general accounts, state and local defined benefit plans, endowments) make up a mere fraction (4.2%) of the segment’s $31 trillion in U.S. professionally managed assets.
ETF usage among institutions is not only limited in terms of depth, but also breadth. Just 25% of asset owners polled use equity ETFs, while only 24% use fixed-income ETFs. While large segments of institutions indicate they are willing to consider equity (51%) or fixed-income (36%) ETFs, only 8% of asset owners agree they will increase use of ETFs over the next 24 months.
Although the pace of ETF adoption amongst institutional investors remains slow, Cerulli encourages asset managers to continue to invest in seeking to penetrate the large institutional market with a focus on helping participants understand key ETF use cases and benefits for their channel. As the range of options amongst active ETFs grows—and more ETFs reach the asset range to be attractive to institutional buyers—an opportunity exists to expand institutional ETF access.
Use The Cerulli Report—U.S. Exchange-Traded Fund Markets 2023 to examine ETF adoption across retail and institutional client segments, including sizing, current use cases, hurdles to adoption, and more.
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