It is almost hard to say it, but the world of exchange-traded products (ETFs, ETNs, etc) hit an almost unbelievable milestone.  The exchange-traded market is now over $1 trillion in assets.  ONE-TRILLION…. We have gone over the details of the research below, but first we wanted to tally up the top ten ETF products that we have listed by market cap to see the size versus the universe.  We generally look at the larger ETF or ETN/ETP when we look for investment strategies.  That being said, a few large ETF and ETN products account for the lion’s share of that $1 trillion as you will see below:

ETF/ETN (Ticker), followed by assets in billions
SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) $91.9 billion
SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) $56.4 billion
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (NYSE: EEM) $47.1 billion
Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF (NYSE: VWO)    $36.6 billion
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (NYSE: EFA) $36.5 billion
iShares S&P 500 Index (NYSE: IVV) $24.5 billion
PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ: QQQQ) $21.9 billion
iShares Barclays TIPS Bond (NYSE: TIP) $19.2 billion
iShares Russell 2000 Index (NYSE: IWM) $18.3 billion
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSE: VTI) $15.6 billion
TOTAL OF TOP 10 ETPs    $368 BILLION

BlackRock has issues some data today showing the $1 trillion mark has now reached $1.027 trillion on December 16, 2010.  The data is being supplied by BlackRock’s Global ETF Research and Implementation Strategy Team.

The list comprises of 894 ETFs with assets of $887.2 billion from 28 providers.  At the end of 2009 the U.S. ETF industry had 772 ETFs with assets of $705.5 billion from 29 providers.  As of 16 December 2010, there were 185 ETPs U.S.-listed with assets of $115.5 billion, from 20 providers, up from 142 ETPs with assets of $88.1 billion from 17 providers at the end of 2009.

The research shows that some 171 new ETFs have been launched in 2010, while 49 ETFs were delisted.  More importantly, BlackRock noted that there is a whopping count of 828 new ETF products in the pieline.

Net new asset flows signal a growing interest in both developed and emerging markets equity products, with less interest in money flows into fixed income and commodities. Through November, net new flows into North American equity ETFs/ETPs have totaled $21 billion, compared with just $2 billion in 2009.  Flows into emerging markets equity ETFs/ETPs totaled $29 billion against $27 billion last year. Of this total, flows into “multi-region” emerging markets products have totaled $26 billion year to date, compared with $16.7 billion last year.  Flows into fixed income products have totaled $31.2 billion, compared with $44.8 billion last year, and flows into commodity products have totaled $11.4 billion, compared with $32.6 billion last year.

The volume is growing as well, which you would expect.  The ETF average daily trading volume in U.S. dollars through November has risen 26 percent to $57.7 billion. ETF trading volume in November accounted for 24.1% of all United States equity turnover.

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JON C. OGG

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