Specialty ETFs dominate the record-long list of new ETFs in 2025, many of them highly volatile. With several weeks to go, the ETF industry has added about 300 new products.
When multiple series of some ETFs are included — such as Canadian-dollar hedged and U.S.-dollar denominated — the number of new listings reached 364, bringing the industry total to more than 1,800.
The largest group of new products turns the original concept of ETFs upside down, providing exposure to just a single large-cap U.S. or Canadian stock. Most of these niche products employ some combination of modest leverage and covered-call options.
Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. was the most prolific, adding 27 new single-stock ETFs. Purpose Investments Inc., which pioneered this specialty niche in December 2022, added 17 to its lineup. Another 10 were launched by Ninepoint Partners LP.
Employing even greater leverage or inverse leverage on single stocks is LongPoint Asset Management Inc., which greatly expanded its lineup this year after first entering the ETF market in late 2024.
LongPoint launched 15 ETFs offering twice the daily movement of single stocks — mostly Magnificent Seven U.S. stocks and some of the largest Canadian stocks. As well, three LongPoint ETFs go short, providing twice the inverse daily exposure to U.S.-listed Nvidia Corp. and Tesla Inc., and Canada’s Shopify Inc.
Even more highly leveraged new trading vehicles from LongPoint include triple-leveraged and inverse-leveraged ETFs — branded MegaLong or MegaShort — tied to the daily movements of various broad-market, sector, bond and commodity indexes.
Global X Investments Canada Inc., the country’s pioneer in daily-leveraged and inverse-leveraged ETFs, expanded its BetaPro suite. New this year are BetaPro products whose returns are tied to three times daily gains or losses of broad market, sector and U.S. bond-market indices.
Crypto ETFs
In cryptocurrency, another volatile category, 19 new ETFs were added by seven companies ranging from iShares sponsor BlackRock Asset Management Canada Ltd. to crypto specialty player 3iQ Corp. As if cryptocurrencies weren’t risky enough, Evolve Funds Group Inc.’s four crypto newcomers included two providing leveraged exposure.
Among fixed-income ETFs, target-date bond pioneer RBC Global Asset Management Inc. faced new competition as it added three new ETFs that mature and terminate at specific dates.
National Bank Investments Inc. weighed in with six target-date bond ETFs, BMO Investments Inc. and CI Global Asset Management added three each, and Mackenzie Investments launched a pair. TD Asset Management Inc. and Guardian Capital LP added three and two respectively to their existing target-date bond offerings, bringing the total to 22 for all providers this year.
A group of specialty fixed-income ETFs that proliferated in 2025 have mandates to invest in collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). These are packages of loans sold by CLO management firms to institutional investors, including ETF companies.
Following the listing of Brompton Wellington Square AAA CLO ETF in April, CLO ETFs were launched by the BMO, CIBC, Mackenzie and RBC families. These ETFs were preceded in September of last year by Corton Enhanced Income Fund, the only ETF offered by Toronto-based Corton Capital Inc.
Among mainstream equity categories, and despite the tariff conflict with Canada’s neighbour, the greatest product expansion was in the already well-served U.S. equity category.
J.P. Morgan Asset Management Canada, which entered the Canadian ETF market in late 2024, added a trio of U.S. equity strategies in 2025: core, value and growth.
A distinctive entry from BMO Investments is BMO Human Capital Factor US Equity ETF. Its strategy is to hold companies deemed to have a strong corporate culture and will presumably outperform the broad market.
Other new U.S. equity products this year, from the CIBC, Evolve and Hamilton families, employ yield-enhancement strategies such as covered calls, and in some cases leverage.
Hundreds of new products were launched, almost exclusively by existing ETF providers. The notable exception was Sun Life Global Investments, which established a modest foothold in September with a trio of fixed-income ETFs.
2025 casualties
Though much fewer in number, terminations were part of the changing ETF landscape. The casualties included various types of specialty mandates, such as the carbon-credit ETFs scrapped by the Global X, Ninepoint and TD families.
Other niche mandates became extinct in 2025 with the terminations of metaverse ETFs sponsored by CI and Global X, and Purpose Marijuana Opportunities Fund.
Along with the demise of carbon-credit ETFs, this year also saw sharp cutbacks at Invesco Canada Ltd. in its ETFs with environmental, social and governance (ESG) mandates. Invesco, which had made ESG investing one of the main themes of its product lineup, eliminated seven ESG-themed ETFs.
Another sustainability concept that failed to survive in 2025 was the Global X S&P Green Bond Index ETF, launched in 2021 as Canada’s first ETF to invest in bonds that raise capital for projects with specific environmental objectives or benefits.
With so many of the new ETFs in niche mandates, rather than those going head to head against established market leaders, expanding lineups did not necessarily translate into gains in market share.
Of the Canadian ETF industry’s Big Three, only second-place BMO Investments was busy launching 24 new ETFs, while market leader BlackRock added only four.
Yet while BlackRock’s share rose slightly to 25.7% in the year to date to Oct. 31, BMO’s market share fell to 21.8%, down two full percentage points.
Meanwhile, third-place Vanguard Investments Canada Inc. — which emphasizes low-fee broadly based index strategies — made no changes to its lineup from a year earlier. The lack of new products to pitch didn’t hurt. Vanguard’s market share rose to 14.4% in October, up 40 basis points since the start of the year.
This article has been updated.