ETF Trends from the RBC Capital Markets Trading Floor – June 2026

June was a trillion-dollar month.

In Canada, gross ETF assets under management hit the $1 trillion milestone and, in the US, year-to-date ETF inflows surpassed US$1 trillion dollars. This can be seen as more proof that ETFs are growing in popularity and investors are choosing differentiated strategies to put their capital to work.

Record ETF adoption continues to happen at a blistering pace, and the asset management industry is rising to the occasion, launching more and more ETF products. In the U.S., more than 100 new ETFs were listed in June alone. While this sheer amount of choice can feel overwhelming, it does offer investors more specific exposures and customizations to potentially add to their portfolio.

Surprisingly, the S&P 500 was actually down 0.95 per cent in June, dragged lower by underperformance of the Mega-Caps (typically companies with a market cap of $200 billion or more) and Mag-7 (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla). This was driven by investor rotation out of the so-called tech ‘Hyperscalers’ and into chipmakers. There were also other non-tech related sector bright spots, including Industrials (up 7.3 per cent), Health Care (+6.6 per cent) and Financials (+4.4 per cent). The overall story was really about how strong Q2 performance was: the US equity market rallied 15 per cent since the start of April, and it was the S&P 500’s best quarterly return in over six years, coming out of the initial Covid-19 drawdown.  

So what were ETF investors doing? In the U.S., they continued to buy the dip. S&P 500 ETFs saw US$50 billion of inflows. They were also buying memory chip stocks through the newly launched thematic ETF – the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) which attracted $8 billion in June and was the third highest ETF by inflows, following two S&P 500 funds (IVV and SPYM). The two largest semiconductor ETFs (SOXX and SMH) also attracted approximately $3 billion each this past month.

Other U.S. ETFs that investors were buying included: Invesco Equal Weight (RSP) ETF, actively-managed Large Cap equity funds (AVLV / DFAL / PVAL), and exposure into the outperforming sectors like Industrials (XLI) and Financials (XLF). Momentum was a top factor, notching US$3 billion of inflows – roughly three times the monthly average. Selling was observed in notable outflows from Physical Gold ETFs like GLD, Bitcoin ETFs like IBIT and Energy sector ETFs like XLE.

Closer to home, June also saw a pick-up in ETF flows. Over $17 billion went into Canadian-listed ETFs, up from an average of $14 billion in the prior two months. This was driven by a resurgence of buying interest in both U.S. equity ETFs and International equity ETFs. Canadian equity inflows also remained steady, with $3.4 billion going into domestic equity funds, right in line with the 2026 monthly average.  

Similarly strong and consistent inflows into asset allocation or all-in-one ETFs continued as well. This category saw a net new $2.1 billion get deployed, consistent with the 2026 year-to-day pace, but running at nearly two times the 2025 inflow run-rate, indicating increased adoption. Canadian banks were up approximately 10 per cent in June and Canadian bank ETFs also gathered additional assets (nearly $1 billion), indicating investors see further upside from these levels.