It's a July for the record books.
State Street Global Advisors finds inflows into exchange-traded funds hit $127 billion. Not only was it the best July ever, but the firm's head of SPDR Americas research notes it is also the second-largest monthly inflow ever.
"Part of it is just the market," Matt Bartolini told CNBC's "ETF Edge" on Thursday. "We see investors deploy cash from the sidelines. A lot of cash was built up over the years. We started to see investors really make a concerted effort to continue to buy into this rally. We also saw sort of broadening in the market depth in terms of rotation take place."
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
Bartolini also points to a narrowing spread between growth and value-oriented ETFs.
"It's not so heliocentric towards tech," he said.
First trillion-dollar year for ETF industry?
Money Report
BTIG's Troy Donohue thinks ETFs are pacing for a major milestone by the end of the year, as long as the macro factors of the election season don't make investors too hesitant.
"It's been a great start to the year," said Donohue, BTIG's head of Americas portfolio trading. "[It] could be the first trillion-dollar year that the ETF industry has."
