The Vanguard 500 ETF had a huge April with nearly $21 billion in net new assets
In the volatile first four months of 2025, investors turned to exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in droves, according to ETF research and consulting firm ETFGI.
ETFs in the US collected a record $360.89 billion of net inflows in the first 4 months of 2025, according to ETFGI’s April 2025 US ETFs and ETPs industry landscape insights report. It shattered the previous record for the first four months of a year, set in 2021 when U.S. ETF inflows hit $329.01 billion. Over the same period last year, ETFs brought in $267.60 billion in net inflows.
In the month of April alone, ETFs scored $62.90 in net inflows, marking the 36th straight month that has happened.
“The S&P 500 index was down 0.68% in April and is down 4.92% YTD in 2025. The developed markets excluding the US index was up 4.86% in April and is up 10.85% YTD in 2025. Spain (up 8.65%) and Portugal (up 7.67%) saw the largest increases amongst the developed markets in April,” according to Deborah Fuhr, managing partner, founder, and owner of ETFGI.
Spike in commodity and active ETF assets
Overall, U.S. ETFs had $10.46 trillion in assets at the end of April, slightly below the record high assets of $10.73 trillion in January 2025. Further, there were 4,197 ETFs on the market from 387 providers listed on 3 exchanges, according to ETFGI.
Of the $62.90 billion in April inflows, equity ETFs gathered $15.45 billion, bringing year-to-date net inflows to $123.98 billion. That is higher than than the $112.59 billion collected over the same period in 2024. Fixed income ETFs garnered $11.43 billion in inflows during April, bringing YTD net inflows to $68.09 billion. That’s up from $37.97 billion in the first four months of 2024.
Commodities ETFs also saw a surge in net inflows to $4.01 billion in April, likely led by investors flocking to gold ETFs. Commodity ETFs have seen $15.75 billion in inflows through April, up from $4.60 billion in net outflows YTD in 2024.
Also, active ETFs attracted $22.17 billion in new investments, bringing the YTD total to $142.95 billion. That easily surpasses the $85.81 billion in net inflows over the same period in 2024.
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF dominates
The 20 largest U.S. ETFs gathered the lion’s share of net new assets, bringing in $75.73 billion in April. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:VOO) led the way, attracting a massive $20.9 billion in April alone. It remains the largest ETF in the world with $608 billion in total assets, bringing in $55 billion in net new assets this year.
Earlier this year it surpassed the longtime asset leader, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY). The SPDR S&P 500 ETF brought in $2.24 billion in April, but the ETF has had $26 billion in net outflows YTD.
The rest of the top 10 is dominated by fixed income ETFs. These include the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF which brought in $6 billion; the Shares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF which gathered $5.3 billion; the Schwab Mortgage-Backed Securities ETF which attracted $4.9 billion; and the Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF which gathered $3.8 billion in assets in April.
Others in the top 10 were the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF with $4.5 billion in inflows, the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF with $3.6 billion; the iShares Bitcoin Trust with $2.7 billion; the Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3x Shares with $2.6 billion; and the Vanguard Growth ETF with $2.5 billion.
