“If you build it, he will come,” a voice tells protagonist Ray Kinsella in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.”

Many investment managers are hoping that if they offer exchange-traded fund (ETF) share classes of their mutual funds, investors will come. The majority of the existing actively managed ETFs have failed to attract large amounts of investor dollars.

This is exhibited in our 2026 ETF guide. Cynthia McLaughlin’s calculations show that the median actively managed ETF had net assets of just $57.0 million at the end of 2025. The median daily trading volume was 13,000 shares.

This year, we should start to see whether investors will finally come if the fund industry builds it. Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) has filed prospectuses with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch ETF share classes for several of its existing mutual funds. Such filings precede the launch of ETFs.

The SEC intends to permit 30 other asset managers to move forward with applications to launch ETF share classes of their own existing mutual funds, according to wealth industry news website Citywire.

As I explain in our latest mutual fund guide, these will not be new stand-alone ETFs. They are simply a new way to hold shares of existing mutual funds: Investors will be able to choose between owning traditional mutual fund shares or ETF shares of the same mutual fund.

For many years, Vanguard has offered investors the choice of holding either mutual fund shares or ETF shares of several of its index funds. The expiration of its patent on the dual mutual fund/ETF class structure opened the doors for other companies to follow, particularly with actively managed funds.

I currently view this as a positive development for investors, though the proof will be in the pudding. Individual investors who hold actively managed mutual funds in taxable accounts should see greater tax efficiency and reduced expense ratios.

AAII members who are interested should pay attention to how the new ETF share classes trade. Lower levels of trading volume can make it more difficult to buy and sell quickly. More importantly, lower volume often leads to wider bid-ask spreads and trades being executed at prices that are different from the fund’s net asset value (NAV).

Wishing you prosperity and good health,