At a glance
- The firm is now the fourth-largest issuer of active ETFs in the U.S., and host Nate Geraci put the franchise at 49 ETFs across the American Century and Avantis banners, with nearly $160 billion in assets under management and about $40 billion in year-to-date inflows.
- Testani sorted those inflows into two client questions: how to restore genuine diversification inside an equity allocation, and how to navigate a fixed-income market that has turned uncertain again.
- Testani resisted declaring the tape bad, noting U.S. stocks are up 13% after several strong years and that earnings have supported the move.
Sandra Testani, American Century's head of ETF product and strategy, recalled on the latest ETF Prime that the entire active ETF universe was "$50 billion with a B" when the firm launched its first ETFs in 2018. The firm is now the fourth-largest issuer of active ETFs in the U.S., and host Nate Geraci put the franchise at 49 ETFs across the American Century and Avantis banners, with nearly $160 billion in assets under management and about $40 billion in year-to-date inflows.
Testani sorted those inflows into two client questions: how to restore genuine diversification inside an equity allocation, and how to navigate a fixed-income market that has turned uncertain again. The first question is where concentration risk does its work.
Testani resisted declaring the tape bad, noting U.S. stocks are up 13% after several strong years and that earnings have supported the move. But ten stocks now represent 40% of the S&P 500 and 60% of the Russell 1000 Growth, a split that is pushing clients to ask whether their growth sleeve is actually diversified. The answer the firm is selling is the American Century U.S. Quality Growth ETF (QGRO): 29 basis points for growth exposure guided through a quality screen.
The wrapper is becoming the lesser part of that pitch. As this publication has argued, active managers are no longer treating the ETF as a product experiment but as a distribution necessity, and QGRO is the strategy-level consequence. The same screen logic is visible in international equity, where QINT's run has pressed the case for quality-screened international exposure.
Testani said the firm focuses on building blocks rather than the latest new toys, and the $40 billion year backs that stance up to a point. Flows, however, measure demand, not whether a screen changes outcomes. The tougher test for QGRO will come in the next real drawdown, when investors learn whether paying 29 basis points for less concentration buys protection or merely a seat belt on the same index.
Reported by the Active desk from ETF Trends. Published . Corrections