But some believe most of that money will go to well-established ETFs reflecting broad market indexes, rather than higher-risk, narrowly targeted ETFs mimicking the performance of a single industry, overseas market or commodity. For example, investors these days can choose among ETFs that focus on alternative energy stocks, or gold, or South African stocks.
Of the 716 ETFs that Morgan Stanley now counts in the U. S. marketplace, just over one-fifth mirror specific sectors or industries.
As for who sponsors ETFs, Morgan Stanley found that Barclays Global Investors holds a 47 percent market share based on ETF assets, with State Street Global Advisors second at nearly 27 percent. Vanguard, which has recently seen strong flows of money into its ETFs, ranks third at 8 percent.
"Vanguard has been gaining market share rapidly by racing to the bottom in expenses," said Dan Dolan, who runs State Street Global Advisors' Select Sector SPDRs, a group of nine ETFs that that divide the Standard & Poor's 500 into broad sector index funds.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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