There’s a lot we will be diving into at Exchange next week in Las Vegas. Are you building a checklist of content you want to see? Here’s what mine looks like:
- Biggest ETF trends of the year? Check. ✔
- Most compelling investment opportunities across asset classes? You bet. ✔
- First-hand perspectives from regulators, asset managers and advisors? Yes! ✔
- The latest innovation in product design and in practice management? Of course. ✔
The agenda is thoughtfully packed and the expertise of the speakers and partners is unmatched. Beyond content, the overall experience promotes active engagement, mutual learning, deepening of community — and some fun, too.
There is certainly a lot going on to keep us plenty busy. Around the world, in markets, and across asset management and advisory businesses, there’s a lot of action, innovation and noise in the world of ETFs. We will parse through all of that in the course of three days.
ETF Success Is Increasingly Hard
One of the many things we’ll be exploring is the idea of success. ETF success, to be specific.
Come Sunday afternoon during the industry conclave, SS&C ALPS’ Paul Baiocchi, T. Rowe Price’s Chris Murphy, TMX VettaFi’s Sebastian Jakob (and myself) will be taking measure of what ETF success looks like in 2026.
The market now boasts more than 5,000 unique ETFs in the U.S. alone. Indeed, it’s on the verge of welcoming many more as part of an expected wave of ETF share classes being born of existing mutual funds.
As the number of ETFs grows, and competition for investor attention stiffens, we will consider why launching an ETF today is fundamentally different than it was a decade ago. Plus, we’ll look into how scale remains key, but definitely not a given.
One of the buzzwords we often hear in this market is “differentiation.” We tie success directly to being different. But what does that look like when a first-of-a-kind idea is hard to come by? If you can no longer be first to an idea, how else can you differentiate? We will explore that.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, success and scale happen in the presence of two key things: a strong value proposition — does your ETF solve an investor problem? — and a long-term commitment from the asset manager behind it. What separates ETF winners from the graveyard tickers? Awareness that the idea-to-launch phase is only the first when bringing an ETF to market. Everything after the initial bell ringing, such as marketing and distribution, is where the biggest challenge begins.
Our panel, who bring diverse expertise thanks to diverse industry paths, will look into all of this. We’ll explore what many asset managers do right, where there’s opportunity to do better, and how scale can be achieved with the right tools and right partners.
Success is harder in 2026. But market saturation and difficult-to-achieve differentiation don’t have to be a deterrent to great new ETF ideas.
On the contrary, conditions call for purposeful strategic thinking. A strong product foundation backed by solid commitment and a distribution strategy that delivers direct access to allocators can make all the difference. This is my invitation for you to come learn together with the experts what a successful go-to-market strategy looks like in 2026.
There’s still time to register! Join us on Sunday, March 15, for ETF Flight Path: Concept to Scale. Looking forward to seeing you all there.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit ETFDB.
