According to @EricBalchunas, while ETFs overall took in $1.5 trillion in 2025, small-cap ETFs saw net outflows, indicating investor preference away from small-cap exposure (source: @EricBalchunas, Jan 9, 2026). He reports large caps have outperformed for five consecutive years, with small-cap allocations at a decade low and new small-cap ETF launches drying up, underscoring persistent dominance of large-cap factors over small caps (source: @EricBalchunas, Jan 9, 2026).

According to @EricBalchunas, passive funds gained 1.4 percentage points of market share in 2025 to reach 54% overall, comprising roughly 60% on the equity side and 40% on the fixed-income side, source: @EricBalchunas on X, Jan 8, 2026. According to @EricBalchunas citing analysis by @JSeyff, the slower pace of passive share gains was driven by a bull market subsidy and genuine growth from active strategies, particularly in active ETFs, fixed income, and buffer strategies, source: @EricBalchunas on X, Jan 8, 2026; analysis referenced from @JSeyff.

According to Eric Balchunas, only 50% of 2025 ETF net inflows went into funds charging 10 bps or less, the lowest share in years, source: Eric Balchunas Jan 7 2026. He said this is not due to investors leaving ultra cheap funds, since the 50% slice still totaled about 750 billion dollars of flows, source: Eric Balchunas Jan 7 2026. He attributed the shift to an expanding ETF universe that includes legacy active strategies, buffer ETFs, hot sauce products, and BYOA, source: Eric Balchunas Jan 7 2026. He added that this is welcome news for asset managers after a period when cheap beta seemed poised to take everything, source: Eric Balchunas Jan 7 2026.

According to @EricBalchunas, IBIT is the only ETF on the 2025 Flow Leaderboard with a negative year-to-date return (YTD), highlighting it as an outlier on performance versus peers (source: @EricBalchunas on X, Dec 19, 2025). He reports that despite the negative return, IBIT still placed 6th by net inflows for the year, underscoring strong investor demand (source: @EricBalchunas on X, Dec 19, 2025). He adds that IBIT attracted more money than GLD in 2025 flows, indicating robust allocation to spot Bitcoin exposure via ETFs (source: @EricBalchunas on X, Dec 19, 2025). Balchunas characterizes this pattern as HODL-style behavior from traditional investors, which he presents as the key takeaway for BTC-linked ETF flows (source: @EricBalchunas on X, Dec 19, 2025).