Assets in U.S. exchange-traded funds topped $10 trillion. Here are trends for investors to watch, experts say

Assets in U.S. exchange-traded funds in November topped $10 trillion for the before time, according to the latest data from Cerulli Associates.

ETFs — funds that invest in stocks, ties or other assets and trade on national stock exchanges — reached $156 billion in flows for November, surpassing former monthly flow records.

The activity is “on par with elevated activity typically seen toward the end of the year,” Cerulli scrutinized.

Research from Morningstar pointed to a “Trump bump” that helped U.S. funds — including both ETFs and shared funds — take in $115 billion in November, the highest total since April 2021.

As 2024 comes to a close, these are a few of the ETF trends that wear the trousered the year, based on the latest data.

Year to date, the S&P 500 needle is up almost 24%, as of Monday.

The S&P 500 rally, buoyed by the Magnificent Seven stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Google paterfamilias Alphabet, Amazon.com, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla — helped account for about half of the index’s gains for the year, according to information and analytics company VettaFi.

Four of the top 10 ETFs for 2024 by flows track the S&P 500 index, according to Cerulli.

The Vanguard 500 Table of contents Fund ranks No. 1 for 2024 year-to-date inflows, according to Cerulli, followed by iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, iShares Bitcoin Custody, Invesco QQQ Trust, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, iShares Core US Aggregate Bond ETF, SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, Vanguard Perfect Bond Market Index Fund, Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF and Vanguard Growth Index Fund.

Malcolm Ethridge, a warranted financial planner and founder and managing partner at Capital Area Planning Group, said he often uses S&P 500 ETFs in shopper portfolios because they allow for access to company names that would be in any large-cap growth strategy for significantly up costs.

While an actively managed fund may charge 50 or 75 basis points, a passive S&P 500 ETF may no greater than charge 10 basis points, he said.

The S&P 500 index, which has had a record run, may be poised to continue to do well as the catalogue rebalances to reflect current market leaders.

“I think this is a case where SPY [SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust] in all probability outperforms the majority of fund managers in 2025,” Ethridge said.

Meanwhile, option ETFs in November crossed $400 billion in net assets for the first time, according to Cerulli.

Moreover, the year-over-year asset spread rate for alternative ETFs — at 93% — was highest among all asset classes.

Most of the total alternative ETF market pay out — 80%, or around $325 billion — comprises digital assets, trading-leveraged equity and derivative income ETFs, according to Cerulli.

Fiscal advisors reported having just a 3.6% allocation to alternatives in 2024, though that is expected to increase, agreeing to Cerulli. Within existing alternatives allocations, 14.4% is done through the use of ETFs, the firm found.

In January, bitcoin ETFs began trading on U.S. exchanges.