The ETF market has continued to reach record highs in Europe, bolstered by strong demand for active, fixed income and core equities, according to HANEtf’s most recent Exchange-Traded Europe report.
In total, global ETF’s now have a combined £23trn in assets under management (AUM), with European ETF’s taking home nearly $133bn in inflows in Q2, a 15% boost compared with last quarter.
Active ETFs were the top grower in the second quarter, rising by 26% to $132bn, a new record for active ETFs in Europe. There have been 93 active ETF launches so far this year, bringing the total number of active ETFs in Europe to 384.
JPMorgan remained the largest producer of active ETFs with 46 products, compared with HANetf and iShares, which have 30 products each.
Core Equity ETFs saw the second biggest boost, rising by 20.2% after a fall in Q1. The report noted that this comes despite recent volatility in equity markets, driven by geopolitical volatility in the Middle East.
Fixed income ETFs lagged the wider market but were still up in absolute terms, with total assets rising by 6.3% in the second quarter. This marks a return to growth for these strategies, which had seen flows decline by 26.3% in the first quarter of the year.
“Fixed income and options-based ETFs lagged wider market growth, while ETCs and commodity ETFs saw double-digit decreases – perhaps in part due to gold’s rockier performance in recent months,” the report noted.
Meanwhile, thematic ETFs seemed to be staging a comeback, according to the report. Year to date in 2026, thematic ETFs have seen $13.3bn in flows, approaching the $16.6bn in flows across 2025. By contrast, 2023 and 2024 were both years of negative flows for thematic ETFs.
While thematic ETFs have traditionally been all about defence, there has been more buildout in AI-related names. For example, US memory ETFs were up $19.5bn in the second quarter, while Europe now has $62bn in memory ETFs, almost all of which were launched in June.
Semiconductors, meanwhile, were up $3.2bn in the second quarter, outperforming defence ETFs, which are up $268m by comparison.
“Elsewhere, space ETFs added over $1bn over the quarter, driven by the largest IPO in history – SpaceX,” the report added.
See also: WisdomTree Space Economy ETF adds SpaceX ahead of the index
