Investor Economics Insight February 2022

The ETF Shelf: From Innovative Beginnings to Current Favourites

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have quickly risen in recent years to take a larger share of asset managers’ shelf of products. ETFs have proved to be resilient by demonstrating consistent sales throughout different market cycles and affinity from both institutional and retail investors. While sponsors have been taking different approaches to the ETF structure, strategies are being tested as we enter a new, more mature, epoch of widespread adoption of ETFs in Canada.

The February 2022 research feature of Insight presents a comprehensive review of the development of ETFs in the Canadian asset management landscape. This publication explores how ETFs have been integrated in the business of different sponsor types, pricing dynamics, product development trends and adoption across distribution channels. The Trendlines feature revisits liquid alternatives across investment vehicles and asset classes, and discusses the opportunities and challenges faced by the product category across different types of dealers