This proves to be difficult, unless you have one of these three virtues: The goal for the Big 10 ETF Firms (I grew up in Ohio, so you always start and end with the Big 10) is to be able to steal market share from either BlackRock or Vanguard. My thoughts have been that the other 120 sponsors would be the fuel to the pending ETF Meger Mania, but perhaps it begins first by some of the leaders combining forces? (See: ETF.com Issuer League Table) We now have more than 150 ETF issuers, with approximately 30 of those being very profitable and able to focus on long-term planning. The ETF world is reaching an interesting point of maturity. That would be in excess of $100 million in annual marketing dollars. I can only imagine the amount of marketing dollars with SPY, MDY and DIA, the other large listed UITs that would theoretically be merged. Today I would guess that the marketing budget for QQQ alone, dictated by the fund’s structure, would be well over $30 million annually. PowerShares purchased the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) to both bolster our AUM and to have the branding budget that was incorporated in the expenses of the listed UIT. It was a great structure for an exchange to use to increase trading in their shares-both the ETF and its underlying-but a lousy structure to be profitable for the sponsor. Most of these ETFs used a now-antiquated structure known as a listed unit investment trust (UIT) as the investment infrastructure.

Similarly, PowerShares bought QQQ from the Nasdaq. The assets were the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), SPDR S&P Midcap 400 ETF Trust (MDY) and SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA), and in time they added in Sector SPDRS and the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD). State Street had its initial success by acquiring from the American Stock Exchange their PDR ETF sponsorship.

Superpower 2 economy