Global ETF News Older than One Year
Global Economy: Tenuous Resilience amid Persistent Uncertainty
July 29, 2025--Global growth expected to decelerate as trade-related distortions wane
Global current account balances widened by a sizable 0.6 percentage points of world GDP in 2024.
Global growth is projected at 3.0 percent for 2025 and 3.1 percent in 2026, an upward revision from the April 2025 World Economic Outlook.
This reflects front-loading ahead of tariffs, lower effective tariff rates, better financial conditions, and fiscal expansion in some major jurisdictions.
Global inflation is expected to fall, but US inflation is predicted to stay above target. Downside risks from potentially higher tariffs, elevated uncertainty, and geopolitical tensions persist.
Source: IMF.org
OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators 2025
July 25, 2025-Executive summary
Productivity growth remained subdued in 2023 and 2024 amid a shifting geopolitical and economic landscape
Productivity growth remained subdued in 2023 and 2024 amid a shifting geopolitical and economic landscape
Following a 0.2% drop in 2022 compared to 2021, labour productivity across all OECD countries rebounded modestly to 0.6% in 2023.
In the euro area, labour productivity fell sharply by 0.9% in 2023, marking the steepest decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Experimental estimates suggest that labour productivity growth is likely to have grown modestly at around 0.4% in 2024 on average across OECD countries, excluding Türkiye.
While Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Generative AI, is expected to positively shape future productivity trends if the right policies are in place, its impact is not yet evident in the productivity statistics.
Source: oecd.org
ETFGI reports that assets invested in the actively managed ETFs listed globally reached a new record of US$1.48 trillion at the end of June
July 22, 2025-ETFGI, a leading independent research and consultancy firm renowned for its expertise in subscription research, consulting services, events, and ETF TV on global ETF industry trends, reported today that assets invested in the actively managed ETFs industry globally reached a new record of US$1.48 trillion at the end of June.
During June the actively managed ETFs industry globally gathered net inflows of US$46.77 billion, bringing year-to-date net inflows to a record US$267.02 billion, according to ETFGI's June 2025 Active ETF and ETP industry landscape insights report, an annual paid-for research subscription service. (All dollar values in USD unless otherwise noted.)
Global Actively Managed ETF Industry Update-June 2025
Record-High Assets: Assets invested in the global actively managed ETFs industry reached a new all-time high of $1.48 trillion at the end of June 2025, surpassing the previous record of $1.39 trillion set in May 2025.
Strong Year-to-Date Growth: Assets have grown by 26.7% year-to-date, rising from $1.17 trillion at the end of 2024 to $1.48 trillion by June 2025.
Robust Monthly Inflows: The industry recorded $46.77 billion in net inflows during June 2025.
Record-Breaking YTD Inflows: Year-to-date net inflows stand at $267.02 billion, the highest on record.
This surpasses the previous YTD records of $153.46 billion in 2024 and $80.03 billion in 2021.
Sustained Momentum: June marked the 63rd consecutive month of net inflows into actively managed ETFs.
Source: ETFGI
Global Current Account Balances Widen, Reversing Narrowing Trend
July 22, 2025--Growing imbalances in largest economies underscore need for concerted adjustment in domestic macroeconomic policies
Global current account balances widened by a sizable 0.6 percentage points of world GDP in 2024.
When adjusted to account for the volatility around the pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine,, the widening is a notable reversal of the narrowing since the global financial crisis and may signal a significant structural shift.
Our just released 2025 External Sector Report (ESR) presents the latest assessment of these imbalances for the 30 largest economies, representing about 90 percent of world output. This assessment constitutes a key part of the IMF's mandate to encourage the balanced expansion of trade and economic growth and promote international monetary cooperation.
Source: IMF.org
Visualizing the World's Biggest Oil Producers by Country
July 16, 2025-Key Takeaways
The U.S. tops global oil production with nearly one-fifth of daily output.
Five countries produce over half of the world's oil every day.
The global oil landscape is dominated by a handful of powerhouse producers whose output shapes energy markets,prices,and geopolitics.
This graphic breaks down daily production in thousands of barrels and the share each country holds of total supply. From North American shale fields to Middle Eastern giants,this chart offers a clear snapshot of how oil flows from well to world.
Source: visualcapitalist.com
WTO issues new edition of World Tariff Profiles
July 7, 2025-The WTO published on 7 July the 2025 edition of World Tariff Profiles, which provides comprehensive data on the tariffs and non-tariff measures imposed by over 170 economies. It is a joint publication of the WTO, the International Trade Centre (ITC) and UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The publication provides summary tables listing the average "bound" (maximum) tariffs and applied tariffs for each economy for both agricultural and non-agricultural products as of end-2024.
One-page profiles offer more detailed tariff data broken down by product groups for each economy based on the WTO's Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) categories, the product classification system used by the WTO for trade statistics and policy analysis.
Also shown are the tariffs imposed on its exports by its main trading partners. Summaries of the import and export tariffs for each economy are also provided. These are complemented by statistics on non-tariff measures (NTMs) by economy and product group.
Source: World Trade Organization (WTO)
Flow Traders-Tokenization in Capital Markets: A Market Maker's Perspective
July 3, 2025-Tokenization unlocks efficiencies like instant settlement, 24/7 trading, and fractional ownership-but real-world adoption depends on solving infrastructure and regulatory challenges, not just technology.
Market makers face key friction points in tokenized markets: fragmented liquidity requiring pre-funding across blockchains, lack of product-market fit without real demand, and operational complexity from 24/7 trading.
Stablecoins succeeded because of simplicity, open access, and clear use cases in payments and crypto trading; tokenized money market funds are slower to grow due to compliance burdens and less obvious utility.
A common misconception is that market makers can manufacture liquidity out of thin air-when in reality, they rely on demand, legal clarity, and reliable settlement rails to operate effectively.
Tokenization's future hinges on fixing infrastructure-cross-chain interoperability, legal certainty, investor access, and better tooling-before it can meaningfully scale in capital markets.
Source: flowtraders
Global Economic Prospects-Global Economy Faces Trade-Related Headwinds
June 14, 2025--The global economy is facing substantial headwinds, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty.
For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the weak outlook limits their ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty. This challenging context is compounded by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs.
Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable global trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries, including those in fragile and conflict situations. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To unlock job creation and long-term growth, reforms should focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets.
International discord-about trade, in particular-has upended many of the policy certainties that-helped shrink extreme poverty and expand prosperity after the end of World War II. This year alone, our forecasts indicate the upheaval will slice nearly half a percentage point off the global GDP growth rate that had been expected at the start of the year, cutting it to 2.3 percent.
That's the weakest performance in 17 years, outside of outright global recessions. By 2027, global GDP growth is expected to average just 2.5 percent in the 2020s-the slowest pace of any decade since the 1960s.
Source: worldbank.org
Disclosing Public Debt Boosts Investor Confidence, Cuts Borrowing Costs
June 12, 2025--Greater debt transparency builds investor confidence, helps reduce borrowing costs, and strengthens debt sustainability-reducing the risk of shocks that can lead to a debt crisis
Public debt is projected to reach nearly 100 percent of global gross domestic product by the end of this decade, surpassing even pandemic-level highs.
Governments, particularly those in emerging market and developing economies, face both mounting debt service costs and shrinking room to maneuver in government budgets.
The result is fewer resources for social programs or investments, reduced capacity to respond to shocks, and higher borrowing costs.
In addition to issuing more debt, countries are increasingly using complex and opaque forms of financing. New debt instruments such as guaranteed, securitized, and collateralized debt contracts linked to public-private partnerships, state-owned enterprises, or SOEs, and pension funds have appeared on the scene.
Source: IMF.org
Global Economy Set for Weakest Run Since 2008 Outside of Recessions
June 10, 2025--2025 Growth Forecasts Cut for 70 Percent of Economies
Heightened trade tensions and policy uncertainty are expected to drive global growth down this year to its slowest pace since 2008 outside of outright global recessions, according to the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report.
The turmoil has resulted in growth forecasts being cut in nearly 70% of all economies-across all regions and income groups.
Global growth is projected to slow to 2.3 percent in 2025, nearly half a percentage point lower than the rate that had been expected at the start of the year. A global recession is not expected. Nevertheless, if forecasts for the next two years materialize, average global growth in the first seven years of the 2020s will be the slowest of any decade since the 1960s.
Source: worldbank.org
