RIAs driving energetic ETFs into cross-border and rising trading floors
William Blair survey finds 56% of RIAs plan to spice up energetic ETF allocations overseas amid mounting worries over US fairness focus.
Registered funding advisors are making ready to steer extra shopper cash abroad, and most say actively managed exchange-traded funds will carry it there, in keeping with a brand new survey by William Blair Investment Management.
Fifty-six % of the 200 US-based RIAs polled by the Chicago-based asset supervisor anticipate to boost their energetic ETF allocations to cross-border and rising trading floors over the subsequent 12 months. No different automobile within the survey got here shut, together with passive ETFs, mutual funds, mannequin portfolios and particular person securities.
The findings arrive as advisors develop uneasy about how a lot shopper wealth rides on a single market. Nearly three in 4 respondents (73%) stated investor portfolios are closely concentrated in US equities, and 90% stated cross-border diversification issues extra now than it did a 12 months in the past.
“Advisors aren’t stepping away from the U.S., however they’re casting a wider internet,” stated Jay Lisowski, world head of product technique and improvement at William Blair Investment Management.
Why energetic ETFs are profitable the cross-border mandate
Active ETFs let a portfolio supervisor choose securities somewhat than replicate an index, whereas conserving the exchange-traded construction. Lisowski argued that issues extra overseas, the place index building can depart gaps a passive fund merely inherits.
“[B]enchmarks throughout non-U.S. trading floors can have blind spots, together with differing nation classifications and inclusion guidelines,” he stated. “Actively managed ETFs permit buyers to make these portfolio choices deliberately whereas sustaining the tax effectivity, liquidity, and transparency related to the ETF construction.”
The survey’s tilt towards the wrapper matches a broader business shift. Research from UMB Fund Services and FUSE Research Network discovered that energetic ETF adoption has tripled in 5 years, with energetic methods holding roughly 12% of the $14.9 trillion US ETF market by way of April 2026, up from 4% in 2021. The identical analysis confirmed 22% of advisors deliberate to cut back their use of energetic mutual funds.
Active methods drew about $574 billion by way of the primary 9 months of 2026, near 40% of all US-listed ETF flows regardless of holding simply 13% of business property, in keeping with the latest read by State Street Investment Management. Overall, US-listed ETF inflows reached a document $1.54 trillion by way of September, already surpassing the full-year 2025 whole of $1.52 trillion.
Worldwide, global active ETF assets climbed to a record $2.59 trillion on the finish of July, ETFGI knowledge present.
Where RIAs see the strongest alternatives overseas
Asked to call as much as three non-US trading floors with the very best prospects over the subsequent three to 5 years, advisors picked the UK most frequently, at 32%, adopted by China at 28% and Canada at 26%. Japan and Germany every drew 24%, and India 17%. By area, Asia-Pacific, at 77%, and Europe, at 70%, far outpaced the Americas at 40% and the Middle East and Africa at 26%.
Flows already lean that manner. Non-US fairness ETFs gathered $30 billion in September, 36% of all fairness ETF inflows whereas representing solely 17% of fairness ETF property, State Street reported. Emerging trading floors ETFs posted internet inflows in 19 of the previous 20 months, supported by a 21% year-to-date achieve in contrast with 12% for US shares.
“While nonetheless enticing, the United States is now not the one engine of financial development and funding returns,” William Blair Chief Investment Strategist Olga Bitel stated in a latest notice.
What’s conserving US allocations sticky?
Advisors had been candid in regards to the challenges holding them again from cross-border publicity. Geopolitical uncertainty was a barrier for 84%, whereas one other 74% majority pointed to shoppers preferring to maintain America first.
Even so, 86% agreed that failing to boost cross-border publicity over the subsequent three to 5 years would quantity to a missed alternative for buyers.
“The advisors we work with need resilient portfolios,” stated Ryan Airola, head of North American middleman distribution at William Blair. “In our view which means proudly owning U.S. property with conviction and complementing them with publicity to development alternatives elsewhere.”
