Canada’s ETF industry set a new assets under management (AUM) record in the first half of the year, a report from National Bank Capital Markets (NBCM) shows.
Year-to-date ETF assets came in at $104 billion by the end of June, marking the first time ETF AUM has surpassed the $100-billion mark this early in a given year.
“By comparison, in the record-smashing past calendar year of 2025, ETF inflows did not accumulate to this level until November,” the report said.
Total unadjusted or gross ETF AUM also reached $1 trillion for the first time in June, “capping a month of notable milestones,” NBCM noted.
Net ETF AUM, meanwhile, hit $881 billion.
June 2026 takeaways
Net inflows into Canadian ETFs came in at $17.5 billion for the month of June.
With $12.6 billion gathered, equity ETFs accounted for the bulk of the net creations. By comparison, the asset class gathered $8.5 billion a month prior.
On a regional basis, international equity ETFs led the way with $6.1 billion in net inflows, followed by Canadian equity ETFs at $3.4 billion, and U.S. equity ETFs at $3.1 billion.
On a sectoral basis, financial equity ETFs dominated the net creations with $1.1 billion gathered. The only equity fund category to experience outflows was real estate, which recorded modest net outflows of $5 million.
Fixed-income ETFs took in $2.8 billion in the month, down from $3.1 billion in May.
Inflows into fixed-income funds were “concentrated in broad/mixed maturity and select short-term exposures,” the report said.
And, despite positive net inflows overall, NBCM noted that fixed-income products accounted for many of the largest ETF outflows, which were largely concentrated in funds with money-market and cash-like exposures, “suggesting a general trend favouring higher-yielding or broader duration fixed income exposures over cash-like instruments.”
Multi-asset ETFs raked in $1.5 billion in net inflows in June, “supported by continued strength in asset-allocation ETFs.” This was a bump from $1.2 billion gathered the previous month.
Leveraged/inverse-leveraged ETFs pulled in $786 million, up from $621 million in May.
Commodity ETFs suffered net redemptions amounting to $283 million, with two of the largest redemptions attributed to a gold bullion fund and a broad commodity fund, compared with $124 million in net inflows a month prior.
Crypto-asset ETFs took in $124 million, marking an improvement from the month prior, when they suffered $33 million in net outflows.
ESG ETFs raked in $539 million in June, up from $281 million a month prior. According to the report, there was one ESG product delisting in June: the BMO MSCI ACWI Paris Aligned Climate Equity Index ETF.
June also saw 29 new ETF launches across 13 providers, bringing first-half launches to 201 ETFs and the total number of ETFs in Canada to 1,977. As the report noted, “the industry is on track to cross the 2,000-product milestone as early as next month.”