In what was a wildly volatile year in the markets, a pretty simple narrative played out. Exchange traded funds focusing on clean energy and innovation performed the best, while oil and gas-focused funds lagged behind.
Funds by Ark Investment Management were among those that posted the best returns, while the worst-performing ETF was the United States Oil Fund LP (USO), which is under SEC investigation surrounding the steps it took to survive this summer's selloff.
The ETF with the best returns in 2020 is the Invesco Solar ETF (TAN), which has $3.33 billion in assets, saw one-year net flows of $1.3 billion and saw one-year total returns of 214.55%.
View the full gallery to see the ETFs with the 10 best and 10 worst returns this year.
Ranked on one-year returns as of Dec. 21, 2020.
Minimum of $5 million in net assets, excludes leveraged and inverse ETFs.
Aniket Ullal is VP, ETF Data and Analytics for CFRA, one of the world’s largest providers of independent investment research. Aniket founded First Bridge Data, a leading source for global ETF data and analytics that was acquired by CFRA in August 2019.
Prior to starting First Bridge, he had product management responsibility for S&P’s US indices, including the widely followed S&P 500 and S&P/Case-Shiller indices. These indices have over $1Trillion in ETF assets tracking them.
Aniket is the author of 'ETF Investment Strategies' (McGraw-Hill; 2013). He is a graduate of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.
