Active exchange-traded funds have been all the rage recently and continue to take in assets. As more become available, here’s a look at what has hit the market and Morningstar analysts’ radar. We now rate more than 120 active ETFs.
While active ETFs have been around for almost two decades, they didn’t take off until a key regulatory change in 2019. The SEC’s Rule 6c-11, commonly referred to as the “ETF Rule,” spurred innovation by streamlining the approval process and permitting custom baskets. In 2025’s first half, 295 active ETFs were launched, excluding those created as trading tools.
More than two-thirds were equity funds.
In 2025’s first half, several of the big active shops continued to build out their ETF lineups—Capital Group with four, J.P. Morgan with four, T. Rowe Price with seven, and Invesco with five. More than 100 ETFs are buffer ETFs, which fall in the defined-outcome Morningstar Category. First Trust, Innovator, and Calamos led the way in the first half with these structured product offerings, each launching at least 15. These strategies allow investors to participate in some of the market’s upside while protecting losses up to a certain point, which is known as the buffer. For example, an ETF with a 12 buffer would shield investors from losses of up to 12%. If the market fell any further, investors would incur the difference between the buffer level and the actual loss.
A handful of strategies launched in 2025’s first half stand out. J.P. Morgan continued its success in active ETFs with the launch of JPMorgan Active High Yield JPHY, which has more than $2 billion in assets. T. Rowe Price launched Capital Appreciation Premium Income TCAL, which is comanaged by star manager David Giroux and offers investors US stock exposure with a covered call overlay. Brown Advisory, which opened one ETF late last year, launched two strategies this year. Brown Advisory Sustainable Growth BAWFX has taken in close to $500 million so far. Capital Group continued to build out its lineup and launched a small/mid-cap, or smid-cap, offering, Capital Group U.S. Small and Mid Cap ETF CGMM, that has taken in more than $300 million. Charles Schwab had success with its Schwab Core Bond ETF SCCR. Harbor Capital Advisors launched four active ETFs focused on smid- and mid-cap stocks, which are offshoots of similar vehicles.
Active ETFs continued to take in money in 2025’s first half and took in $183 billion in assets. The top 20 ETFs gobbled up more than 35% of the assets. Some of the biggest ETFs continued their intake, with two of J.P. Morgan’s equity income offerings landing in the top five. Two of BlackRock’s factor-rotation products—iShares US Equity Factor Rotation ETF DYNF and iShares US Equity Thematic Rotation ETF THRO—each took in more than $4 billion in assets (in part because both feed into the firm’s models and target-allocation series). An interesting one, YieldMax MSTR Option Income Strategy ETF MSTY, took in close to $4 billion, which seeks to give investors capped exposure to Strategy MSTR (formerly MicroStrategy, which is largely correlated to bitcoin).
Active ETFs in the large-blend, ultrashort bond, derivative-income, and large-value categories all took in at least $10 billion in assets in the first half. In total, the four categories accounted for roughly half of all active ETF flows.
Five firms—J.P. Morgan, Dimensional, Capital Group (the parent of American Funds), iShares, and American Century (which runs Avantis)—each took in more than $10 billion in assets and in total accounted for roughly 50% of all 2025 active ETF inflows.
It hasn’t been all inflows, though. Three ARK Invest strategies saw more outflows in 2025’s first half, losing roughly $1 billion in total. Firms also liquidated or merged 40 active ETFs in 2025’s first half; they should shutter more in 2025 since only about half of active ETFs have more than $100 million in assets, which is a rough breakeven level for funds.