US-listed ETFs have attracted record inflows as investors have increasingly turned to active strategies and thematic exposures.

Investments into US-listed ETFs are on track to exceed US$2 trillion in 2026, with the growing use of active strategies among institutional investors helping drive record flows, according to Goldman Sachs Global Banking & Markets.

More than US$1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) flowed into US-listed ETFs during the first half of the year, putting the market on course for a 40 per cent increase in new money compared with 2025.

While ETFs have traditionally been associated with passive index tracking, Goldman Sachs said increasingly sophisticated strategies were changing the structure of the market, with active funds capturing more than 35 per cent of inflows this year.

Actively managed products currently account for about 13 per cent of the $16.1 trillion held in US-listed ETFs, as institutional investors increasingly use the vehicles for portfolio construction, rebalancing and attempts to outperform benchmark indexes.

Tom Campbell, head of Americas ETF distribution at Goldman Sachs Global Banking & Markets, said the expansion reflected a broader evolution in how the ETF structure was being used.

“We’re now seeing some of the most advanced active management strategies in the markets expressed within the ETF wrapper,” Campbell said. “These range from levered funds to innovative fixed income offerings to structured derivatives.”

Product development has also accelerated, with more than 1,100 new ETFs entering the market in 2025 and Goldman Sachs expects that record to be surpassed this year. The number of listed ETFs in the US is expected to exceed 6,000, putting the total above the number of individual stocks in the US market.

Campbell said existing funds were also attracting substantial flows as investors continued to value trading volumes, intraday liquidity, transparency and tax efficiency.

Jackson Isaacs, head of Americas equity ETF trading at Goldman Sachs Global Banking & Markets, said demand for greater portfolio customisation had encouraged issuers to bring a growing range of products to market.

“There is this yearning from investors to get more customisation in their portfolios. So we have seen this influx of new products from issuers which are, quite frankly, seeing what sticks,” Isaacs said.

“If an issuer develops a product around an investment theme and is the first to market, that can be very powerful. And there is a material level of adoption of these new products by different client segments, from individual retail investors to the world’s largest institutions.”

Thematic strategies have been among the beneficiaries of that demand, allowing investors to target exposures ranging from South Korean equities to memory chips through listed products.

Institutional adoption has also extended beyond individual strategies, with pension funds among investors using combinations of ETFs to construct broader multi-asset portfolios.

That shift has been accompanied by rapid growth in third-party model portfolios, where ETF assets have increased 46 per cent over the past 12 months to $950 billion.

Goldman Sachs said the growth of ready-made portfolios across wealth and advisory channels showed ETFs were increasingly being used to implement multi-asset strategies in place of traditional securities.

Technology-related flows have meanwhile highlighted how investors are using ETFs to adjust exposures within individual market themes.

Semiconductor ETFs attracted more than $19 billion in June, their largest aggregate month of inflows, while software ETFs recorded about $1.9 billion in outflows, among their largest monthly redemptions since 2018.

Isaacs said overall ETF trading volumes at Goldman Sachs were running 50 per cent above 2025 levels, which had already represented a record year.

Across the industry, ETFs are averaging about $320 billion in notional trading volume each day, according to Campbell, while their share of trading activity can climb to 40 per cent during periods of market stress.

“We see this in our trading. Investors are clearly gravitating to these products from a hedging and rebalancing standpoint, and this is strongest during times of heightened volatility,” Campbell said. “Investors are continually leaning into ETFs.”