Since their debut in financial markets, the vast majority of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been passively managed, either tracking an index or tweaking an index in some way to achieve their investment goals.
That has changed in recent years. In 2021 through the third quarter, ETF providers launched 332 products – with 197 of them, or 59%, managed by real, live humans, according to ETF.com. Seven of the top 10 ETF launches in 2021 (ranked by assets under management) are actively managed, gobbling up $10.2 billion in assets amongst them.
One of the more intriguing launches of 2021 sits not far outside the top 10: Goldman Sachs Future Tech Leaders Equity ETF (GTEK) amassed an impressive $260 million in less than three months of existence.
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Goldman’s managers and a horde of more than 80 fundamental equity analysts are on a mission to identify innovative companies aligned with durable, long-term growth themes – and ones that trade for reasonable valuations to boot.
You might assume that GTEK is chock-full o’ tech – and you’d be right: Nearly 75% of assets are invested in technology firms; the tech-adjacent communication services sector claims 13%.
Some 62% of the portfolio is invested in U.S. companies, including Marvell Technology (MRVL, semiconductors) and Workday (WDAY, cloud software). But the sizable remainder of assets is spread across another dozen or so countries. Top GTEK holdings MediaTek and Silergy are a pair of Taiwanese silicon firms.
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