Direxion enters Top 20 ETF Issuers in America

Without surprise, iShares, Vanguard and SPDR remain at the very top in terms of assets, with iShares controlling more than a third of the market.

However, there is a new entrant in this quarter’s top 20: Direxion, ranking 13th. With an increase of 22% of its assets and impressive inflows of +$1.9Bn, Direxion moved into the largest providers of the America region.

The success of Direxion’s leveraged semiconductor ETF

This ramp up is undoubtedly helped by the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares ETF, tracking the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index with a 300% leverage. The new assets invested in this ETF represents 95% of the total inflows of the provider over the quarter. It is also one of the 50 ETFs with the largest inflows of any index-tracking ETFs for the first quarter of 2021.

The lockdowns imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic might be one of the reasons behind Semiconductor ETFs’ success. They created supply tensions in the growing semiconductor sector as well as in other materials. With the rise of electric vehicles, the arrival of 5G and the strong digitization of the global economy, the demand for semiconductors has never been so high, and production struggled to keep pace.

Source: Trackinsight (Q1, 2021)

Semiconductors: a winning bet for investors

Investors who anticipated those tensions placed a winning bet on the rise of the semiconductor prices. Semiconductor indices had a 16.7% return over the first quarter. In comparison, the S&P 500 index returned just 10% over the same period.

Source: Trackinsight (Q1, 2021)

Direxion is now in the Top 20 ETFs issuers in America with a total of more than $24Bn in assets and 73 ETFs in its range, of which a huge majority (90%) remains managed passively, ie. tracking indices.

For more information on Providers ranking and ETFs, please download our 2022 Trackinsight Global ETF Survey.