Top 10 best-selling ETFs in July

Five of the 10 best-selling ETFs on the Fidelity platform last month were global tracker funds, which is much as we have come to expect.

More noteworthy perhaps were some of our customers’ other choices, such as two ETFs that reduce or eliminate exposure to America’s most valuable and prominent companies and one that focuses solely on AI infrastructure. And, while one emerging markets ETF made the list, UK-focused funds were conspicuous by their absence.

Read on to discover July’s top 10 best-selling ETFs, or click below to explore the month’s best-selling investment trusts, ISA and SIPP funds.

‘Plain vanilla’ global trackers took the first two places on the list of 10 best-selling exchange-traded funds among Fidelity customers last month. They were the Vanguard FTSE All-World and the Invesco FTSE All-World ETFs. Both track the FTSE All-World index, which includes companies from around the world, so these ETFs offer investors very broad exposure to global stock markets.

Next came the first fund to take a more nuanced approach. The iShares MSCI World Ex USA ETF explicitly avoids American stocks and instead invests across other developed markets.

This type of fund may appeal to several types of investor. They include those who already have exposure to Wall Street, perhaps via direct holdings or actively managed funds; those who want to control their US allocation separately rather than accept the weighting provided by a global tracker; and those who want to avoid the US stock market because they fear it is overvalued or that the AI investment boom will prove unsustainable.

In fourth place was a fund for the opposite kind of investor, those who want straightforward exposure to the largest American companies. This ETF, the iShares Core S&P 500, offers exactly that.

The Amundi Smart Overnight Return ETF, which is akin to a cash fund, came next in the list. Although it yields 4.1% at present, income is reinvested. Yields are variable and not guaranteed.

Another straightforward global equity fund, the Legal & General Global Equity ETF, occupied sixth place. This ETF tracks the Solactive Core Developed Markets Large & Mid Cap index.

In seventh place was the emerging markets tracker we alluded to in the opening paragraph, namely the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI ETF.

IMI stands for investable markets index, a term explained in our article Top 10 best-selling ETFs in January. The ETF is a member of Fidelity’s Select 50 list of recommended funds, compiled by Fundhouse, an independent research firm. Fundhouse says of the ETF: ‘BlackRock, which runs iShares, has good experience in index tracking and this fund is well priced.’ The ETF’s ‘ongoing charge’ is 0.18% a year.

The iShares AI Infrastructure ETF was in eighth place. While some investors seem to want to limit exposure to the AI theme, to judge by the ex USA fund in third place and the ‘equal weight’ ETF we’ll come to in a moment, others are still keen to buy a fund that offers nothing else.

We should not assume, however, that investors who buy this fund are putting all their money into AI; prudent savers may want some AI stocks as part of a well diversified portfolio and see a fund such as this as a convenient and low-cost way to get such exposure.

Ninth place in the table was taken by the Vanguard FTSE Developed World ETF, another global tracker. As its name indicates, the fund excludes emerging markets. (Less obviously, so too do funds that track what is perhaps the most popular global index, the MSCI World. By contrast, the MSCI ACWI, or All Country World Index, includes emerging markets.)

Finally in the 10th spot in the best-sellers’ table came the Invesco MSCI World Equal Weight ETF.

The key point about this fund is that every constituent is given the same weight. This contrasts with most other trackers, which have larger positions in the more valuable companies and are referred to as ‘capitalisation weighted’.

The practical effect is that this ETF has far less exposure to giant companies such as the ‘Magnificent 7’ and less exposure to American stocks generally (42.2% against 72% for the capitalisation-weighted MSCI World index). It can be seen as a more balanced way to get global stock market exposure.