U.S.-listed ETFs have $2.2 trillion in combined AUM, and advisors account for half of that.

Philip Snow FactSet Chief Executive Officer

Dave Nadig of ETF.com digs into "who's buying what etf?", dividing it by channel. ETF.com draws on data from FactSet, which in turn draws on asset managers' public disclosures.

FactSet's data accounts for $1.333 trillion of that $2.2 trillion in ETF AUM. Not all hedge fund managers disclose holdings publicly, ETF.com notes, so the $32.548 billion in ETFs FactSet says is held by hedge funds is probably an underestimation. And similar lack-of-disclosures issues may plague other areas in the list. Yet some of that remaining $900 billion in ETF AUM is probably direct with retail investors, too.

Meanwhile, the biggest three channels on the list are all advisors: "investment adviser" at number one with $729 billion, private banking and wealth management at number two with nearly $318 billion, and brokers with nearly $117 billion. Combined, those three channels account for $1.163 billion of U.S.-listed ETFs' AUM, FactSet estimates.

Number four on the list is actually other mutual fund managers, with $60.32 billion invested in U.S.-listed ETFs. It's not clear where ETF strategists, who build portfolios with ETFs as the underlying building blocks, fit in the list. (Some ETF strategists offer some portfolios in mutual fund form.)

For fundsters interested in ETF usage in different channels, ETF.com's chart include 14 of them in total. The article offers charts for the most popular ETFs in four of those channels. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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