VettaFi held its 2026 Winter Symposium last week, focusing on the year that was and the year ahead. The symposium included plenty of juicy data, including from firms like Fidelity Investments. Fidelity’s Head of ETF Strategy, Craig Ebeling, joined VettaFi Head of Research Todd Rosenbluth and Director of Research Cinthia Murphy to break down the firm’s ETF market data for 2025 and speak to his views on the year to come.
See more: The Fidelity Magellan Fund: From Fund Star to ETF Contender
Ebeling’s segment, “2025 ETF Flow Trends: Key Takeaways for the New Year Ahead,” explored flow trends by categories, fee levels, and active vs. passive splits. For example, Ebeling pointed to the continued growth of active as one notable area for market watchers to explore.
“When we look at the overall market in 2025, we saw roughly 36% of the overall fund flows going towards active in the overall market,” Ebeling said. “When we look at the intermediary space, it … was a little bit over 46% of the incoming flows were active. So you’re seeing advisors kind of leading that charge of adoption of active ETFs.”
Ebeling also emphasized the amount of buying that occurred last year despite notable volatility and the broadening of the market. That broadening benefited areas like large value, international developed, and small- and midcap stocks, he said.
Fidelity Investments ETF Leader Talks 2025 Data
In fixed income, meanwhile, Ebeling pointed to advisors and the broader market moving to ultra short. Advisor and intermediary spaces, however, looked more toward core passive funds and core-plus active funds. It was derivative income that offered a bit of a twist, he noted.
“A little less conviction in derivative income, which was a little surprising given the kind of demand that we’ve seen in that space,” he said. “The intermediary, advisor space, used it a little less. They were doing more traditional fixed income to kind of get that yield exposure.”
Rosenbluth asked Ebeling to dig a little deeper into the passive space and the data therein. Ebeling explained that he likes to look at the areas where passive beats active or vice versa. Low-cost, tax-efficient, large-cap core beta remained tough to beat in passive, he said. To his surprise, however, foreign large blends leaned more into passive, while foreign considerable growth leaned more to active.
“You definitely saw a shift out of passive in small-caps,” he said. “Small-cap, small-cap blend in general, was negative in fund flows in the passive space, but was actually $17 billion positive, in active.”
ETF Fees and Flows
Murphy, meanwhile, asked Ebeling to share some data regarding flows and fees. Specifically, she noted, are investors being rewarded for the traditionally higher fees charged by active strategies?
Ebeling pointed to the firm’s survey data among advisors, noting that while fees are essential to advisors, beating the index is a higher priority.
“When we looked at overall active flows, and this was true in the overall and in the advisor space, the sweet spot was 20 to 40 basis points,” he said.
Some 43% of overall flows went to ETFs charging fees in that range, he said, with 46% of advisor-driven flows directed there. The second-largest bucket for overall ETF flows went to ETFs charging 61 basis points (bps) or more, he said, to his surprise.
“That seems expensive to me, right? Especially in the ETF world, that’s a high, high number,” Ebeling explained.
ETF Options Ahead
Intriguingly, however, he said that the 61-bps-plus bucket saw the lowest percentage of advisor-driven flows, suggesting greater reluctance among advisors toward those expensive ETFs than the overall flow data suggest.
In terms of which types of ETFs dominated in each fee bucket, Ebeling spoke to the different varieties of active and passive ETFs. Among active ETFs in that popular 20-to-40 bps range, active fixed income and systematic active ETFs have seen flows, he said.
Fidelity Investments itself offers a variety of ETFs across active and passive approaches. The firm’s ETFs, such as the Fidelity Enhanced International ETF (FENI ) and the Fidelity Yield Enhanced Equity ETF (FYEE ), offer passive and active approaches to international equities and fixed income, respectively. For those looking to benefit from the firm’s research capabilities, the firm’s ETFs and other offerings may appeal.
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Fidelity Investments® is an independent company unaffiliated with VettaFi LLC (“VettaFi”). These articles do not form any kind of legal partnership, agency affiliation, or similar relationship between VettaFi and Fidelity Investments, nor is such a relationship created or implied by the articles herein. VettaFi LLC is the author and owner of these articles.
