A China-focused ETF shop took the lead last month among midsized fund firms, according to the latest data from the folks at a publicly traded investment research firm.

This article draws from Morningstar Direct data on February 2025 mutual fund and ETF flows, excluding money market funds and funds of funds. (Other asset management products, like CITs and SMAs, are also not included.) More specifically, this article focuses on the 210 firms (down by one month-over-month from January 2025 but up by one year-over-year from February 2024) with between 10 and 99 long-term mutual funds and ETFs each.

KraneShares took the lead last month, thanks to an estimated $1.829 billion in net February 2025 inflows, up by $1.83 billion M/M from January 2025 and up by $1.594 billion Y/Y from February 2024. Other big February 2025 inflows winners included:

Baird (including Strategas), $1.019 billion (down by $160 million M/M, down by $585 million Y/Y);

Edward Jones' Bridge Builder, $972 million (down by $104 million M/M, up by $195 million Y/Y);

BBH, $700 million (up by $488 million M/M, up by $671 million Y/Y); and

First Eagle, $473 million (up by $33 million M/M, up by $689 million Y/Y).

For the trailing twelve months ending on February 28, 2025, Baird led the midsize firm inflows pack, thanks to an estiamted $19.225 billion in net inflows. Other big TTM inflows winners included: Bridge Builder, $9.616 billion; and Dodge & Cox, $8.477 billion.

On the flip side, Grayscale took the outflows lead last month, thanks to an estimated $689 million in net February 2025 outflows, up by $393 million M/M from January 2025 but down by $2.102 billion Y/Y from February 2024. Other big February 2025 outflows sufferers included:

USCF, $526 million (up by $502 million M/M, a $695-million net flows drop Y/Y);

Graniteshares, $521 million (down by $309 million M/M, a $905-million net flows drop Y/Y);

Brinker's Destinations, $459 million (up by $445 million M/M, up by $252 million Y/Y); and

Harding Loevner, $328 million (up by $60 million M/M, up by $27 million Y/Y).

As of February 28, 2025, Grayscale led the TTM outflows pack among midsize firms, thanks to an estimated $16.419 billion in net outflows. Other big outflows sufferers included: Harding Loevner, $5.384 billion; and Baron, $4.317 billion.

As a group, midsize fund firms brought in $5.287 billion in net net February 2025 inflows, accounting for 6.8 percent of overall industry inflows. (That's down by $3.918 billion M/M but up by $2.618 billion Y/Y.) As of February 28, 2025, midsize firms accounted for 27.2 percent of industry fund firms and held $1.838 trillion in AUM (5.9 percent of total industry AUM) across 5,912 funds (13.6 percent of the industry's funds().

As of February 28, 2025, midsize firms brought in $56.71 billion in net TTM inflows. That accounts for 7.5 percent of industry inflows over those 12 months.

Across the whole industry, the 773 firms (down by 27 M/M* and down by 5 Y/Y) tracked by the M* team brought in $77.635 billion in net February 2025 inflows. (That's up by $37.715 billion M/M and up by $14.505 billion Y/Y). As of February 28, 2025, the industry had $31.272 trillion in AUM (down by $163 billion M/M but up by $3.654 trillion Y/Y) across 43,367 funds (up by 88 M/M, up by 816 Y/Y).

For the 12 months ending February 28, 2025, the industry brought in $754.029 billion in net inflows.

*This M/M drop in the fund firm count is largely one of classification, as MFWire now labels all ETF families advised by Tidal Investments as one entry together. See Tidal's profile for a list of firms that the ETF-in-a-box shop works with. 

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