At The Money: How Big Can Active ETFS Get?

Masters in Business

Bloomberg

Business, Entrepreneurship, Investing

4.4 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

ETFs gained a reputation for providing investors with low-cost index exposure, but many of the newest funds are actively managed. Some are costly and speculative. What is an ETF investor to do?

Dave Nadig is President and Director of Research at ETF.com, and he shares with us how investors should navigate all of these new products. He helped design and market some of the first exchange-traded funds.

Each week, “At the Money” discusses an important topic in money management. From portfolio construction to taxes and cutting down on fees, join Barry Ritholtz to learn the best ways to put your money to work.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Climate action takes center stage this November. On November 4th, Bloomberg Green comes to
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0:24.8	Learn more at Bloomberglive.com slash green underscore cop 30.
0:32.3	Bloomberg Audio Studios,
0:34.8	Podcasts, Radio News.
0:42.1	Pump it out when you don't even need it. Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. When we think about ETFs, we tend to think about large, cheap, passive indexes.
0:53.8	After all, those are the biggest ETFs from places like BlackRock,
0:58.8	Vanguard, and State Street. But when we look at all the new ETF launches, they tend to not be
1:05.5	passive indexes, not be cheap, and not come necessarily from those three big companies.
1:12.5	They're active and they are involved in all sorts of different areas that are off the beaten path.
1:19.2	To figure out what this means for your portfolio, let's bring in Dave Notting.
1:24.4	He is the president and director of research at etf.com and a ETF structural expert,
1:31.8	really, since the inception of the entire sector. So, Dave, we've seen an explosion in the growth of
1:39.9	not just new ETFs, but primarily active ETFs in all sorts of niches. What are you seeing in this
1:48.1	space? Well, you know, for a long time, ETF meant cheap index, right? I mean, you either go back
1:54.7	to SPY and then the first I shares products and then even when we started getting into the big
1:59.8	expansion of the 2000s, it was all
2:01.8	just index, index, index.
2:03.1	Then we got some smart beta where we tried to be a little bit more clever.
	...

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