Actively managed exchange-traded funds are gaining traction with long-term investors, Morningstar investment specialist Susan Dziubinski writes in a new blog post.
These funds are run by managers or management teams that select securities to buy, Dziubinski notes, rather than simply index a particular part of the market. Most actively managed ETF strategies seek to produce better risk-adjust returns over time than their benchmarks.
In the past decade, the number of active ETFs has shot up by more than 1,200% and has nearly doubled in the past two years, according to Morningstar's most recent annual fund-flows report.
"Total assets in active ETFs have risen from $52 billion in 2016 to nearly $1.5 trillion in 2025, growing 64% in 2025 alone," analysts Drew Carter and Joe Bullard wrote.
They pointed out that many highly regarded asset managers are rolling out active funds or converting existing actively managed mutual funds into active ETFs.
According to Dziubinski, actively managed funds as a group have struggled to beat their indexes. Yet, some active managers have outperformed, especially when adjusting performance for risk.
In her post, she named the best active ETFs investing in U.S. stocks. They all landed in one of the broad U.S. stock Morningstar categories. Most favor large-caps stocks, but some invest in smaller-cap stocks. Some favor value stocks, while others prefer growth stocks. The list also contains a couple of dividend ETFs.
Each fund on the list earned the top Medalist Rating of Gold that is 100% analyst-driven as of February.
See the accompanying gallery for the 11 best actively managed ETFs to buy this year. One-year performance is as of Feb. 9.
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