Vanguard Group is at the center of the flight to passive equity, acting as a black hole near active management's solar system, pulling more of its assets into its gravity field, crushing their higher fees into fractions of their former selves. The investment behemoth's mutual fund business has always been its foundation, but at $3.4 trillion in U.S assets, growth is slowing, likely because there is only so many assets to go around. One thought I had in my musings about passive asset growth has been would there ever be a time when Vanguard manages every dollar of managed assets; that would be an epic battle with fellow titans BlackRock and SSGA would indeed be a must see pay-per-view event.
Growth in Vanguard's ETF assets has been on average 57% higher than mutual fund asset growth. Overall the trend is in line with the rest of the industry, but Vanguard has been ahead of industry totals. Of the total $3.3 trillion in ETF asset growth in 2017 through October, Vanguard accounted for 25% of that growth. Its U.S. ETF assets grew 33% over the 10-month period to $814 billion, while total U.S. ETF assets grew 28%.
