These new ETFs got off to a fast start

Article Excerpt

This issue we look at the most successful North American ETF launches in 2018. Here “success” is measured in terms of the assets they’ve gathered since their start-up. With that in mind, here are two of the most successful new launches in 2018. COMMUNICATION SERVICES SELECT SECTOR SPDR ETF $43.87 (New York symbol XLC) invests in telecommunications, media and entertainment companies. The ETF offers exposure to the Communication Services sector that was defined by September 2018 changes to the Global Industry Classification Standard. It’s the sector benchmarking system used by many indexers to classify thousands of stocks worldwide. The fund includes all members of the former telecom sector (expanded to include Internet service providers), as well as media & entertainment companies previously classified as consumer discretionary or tech. The ETF launched on June 18, 2018, and has gathered $3.7 billion of assets. However, it’s likely that a portion of those assets came from other ETFs as a result of the changes to the sector classifications. The fund holds…