As of December 2023, State Street’s SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust was the highest valued exchange-traded fund (ETF) globally, with a market capitalization of about 417.37 billion U.S. dollars. Market capitalization of an ETF is calculated by multiplying the number of shares issued in the fund by the share price. This ETF is also the largest ETF by assets under management - although, at over 1 trillion U.S. dollars, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is overall the largest investment fund by AUM. However, the Vanguard fund is different because shares in the fund are sold as a variety of different products, some of which are structured as ETFs (like the third-largest fund listed in this statistic), while others are structured as traditional mutual funds.
What are ETFs?
ETFs are similar to mutual funds, in that they consist of a pool of investors’ funds which are managed by an independent third party for the purpose of a common financial investment. However, ETFs differ through how shares in the fund are bought and sold through a stock exchange, rather than directly from the fund manager. This provides the advantages of generally lower prices (as the transaction costs are paid by the exchange operator rather than the fund manager), and the possibility of intraday trading (as shares in a traditional mutual fund can only be bought and sold after the close of daily trading. The total assets managed by ETFs globally is almost six times lower than that of mutual funds, although the gap in AUM between ETFs and mutual funds in the United States is much lower, at just over three times less.
Who are the largest ETF providers?
The largest provider of ETFs globally is Blackrock, the world’s largest asset management company. As of 2023, the company had more than 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars of assets under management in exchange traded funds in the U.S. alone, while Blackrock’s total assets under management across all products reached almost ten trillion U.S. dollars. Rounding out the top three providers of ETFs are fellow U.S asset managers Vanguard and State Street.
