Registered investment advisors expanded their ETF lineups in the first quarter of 2026, with real assets, defense-oriented funds and active managers gaining share as advisors moved beyond simple broad-market exposure and used exchange-traded funds for more targeted portfolio construction.

New AdvizorPro data reported by InvestmentNews on May 28 showed the average RIA firm held 89.7 unique ETFs in portfolios as of the first quarter, up from 85.9 at the end of 2025. The analysis covered 5,304 firms present in both the fourth-quarter 2025 and first-quarter 2026 snapshots and was drawn from 13F filings. Roughly half of the firms added net new ETFs during the quarter, while fewer than 30% trimmed their ETF lineups.

The figures point to an RIA channel that is broadening rather than consolidating ETF exposure. AdvizorPro’s quarterly data showed a 12.3% average turnover ratio across the universe, with advisors adding ETF positions at a rate of 13.7% of prior holdings and dropping positions at a 9.2% rate. In aggregate, the firms analyzed produced a net gain of more than 20,000 ETF positions during the quarter.

That activity is significant for the wealth-management industry because RIAs are among the most important distribution channels for ETFs. Independent advisory firms influence portfolio decisions for high-net-worth households, affluent retirees, family-office clients and taxable-account investors who often care about tax efficiency, transparency and intraday liquidity. The latest data suggests advisors are not only expanding use of the ETF wrapper but also assigning ETFs more specific roles inside client portfolios.

The strongest Q1 pattern was the move into real assets. Using Morningstar classifications, AdvizorPro found that equity energy was the fastest-growing category by net new RIA count, adding 265 advisors and growing 14% from fourth-quarter 2025 levels. Natural resources added 145 RIA allocators, and broad-basket commodities gained 118. Together, those three real-asset categories produced a combined gain of 528 net new RIAs in a single quarter.

The rotation indicates that advisors are responding to inflation concerns and market concentration risk by adding exposures that may behave differently from traditional large-cap equity and core bond holdings. Real-asset ETFs can include commodity futures, natural-resource producers, energy equities, infrastructure-linked companies and inflation-sensitive assets. They are not uniform risk hedges, and their performance can diverge sharply across market cycles, but their rising adoption shows that advisors are searching for tools that can address purchasing-power risk and diversify portfolios away from the dominant technology-led equity trade.

The same data showed pressure on consumer and broad-technology exposures, a notable shift after several years in which mega-cap technology and growth stocks heavily influenced portfolio results. For RIAs, reducing reliance on a narrow set of equity drivers can be particularly important when working with clients who are drawing income, managing concentrated stock wealth or seeking lower correlation across portfolio sleeves.

Defense-oriented industrial funds also gained ground. InvestmentNews reported that the iShares U.S. Software ETF, Global X Defense Tech ETF, SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF and Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF each added RIA allocators during the quarter. The gains show how geopolitical tension and government-spending themes are becoming portfolio inputs for advisors, particularly when clients seek equity exposure tied to areas that may be less dependent on consumer discretionary demand.

Active ETFs were another prominent part of the quarter’s story. Akre Capital Management’s actively managed ETF, AKRE, rose from 140 RIA allocators at the end of 2025 to 404 by the close of the first quarter, according to the InvestmentNews report. That 188.6% increase reflected the ability of a recognized active manager to move investor attention into a new ETF structure, especially when the manager already has a record in mutual funds, separate accounts or model portfolios.

The active-ETF shift is not isolated to one fund. Brown Brothers Harriman’s 2026 Global ETF Investor Survey found that 66% of respondents preferred active management over passive strategies for the next 12 months. The same survey reported that 94% of investors expected active ETFs to reach $10 trillion in assets within 10 years, while 77% expected that milestone within seven years. Those expectations are reshaping distribution strategies for asset managers that historically relied on mutual funds, separately managed accounts or institutional mandates.

For RIAs, active ETFs can serve several roles. They can offer tax-aware access to traditional stock-picking strategies, income-oriented credit portfolios, derivative overlays, international equity mandates and risk-managed allocation models. They also give advisors another way to blend discretionary manager selection with the operational benefits of the ETF structure. The trade-off is that active ETFs can be more expensive and more strategy-dependent than plain-vanilla index products, which raises the importance of manager due diligence.

AdvizorPro’s data also suggested that fee tolerance is widening. The high-fee ETFs gaining new RIA allocators were no longer dominated solely by defined-outcome or buffered products. The latest group included long-short equity, market-neutral, preferred-stock, infrastructure, tactical allocation and option-overlay strategies. That indicates advisors may be more willing to pay for complexity when a fund solves a defined portfolio problem, such as downside mitigation, yield enhancement, alternative beta or exposure to a difficult-to-access asset class.

This marks a shift from the earlier phase of ETF adoption, when the strongest value proposition was often low-cost market beta. The current phase is more nuanced. Advisors still use broad index funds as portfolio cores, but they are increasingly using specialized ETFs as satellites, risk tools and income sleeves. That creates more opportunity for smaller issuers and specialist managers, while increasing the burden on advisors to explain product design and performance behavior to clients.

The largest ETF issuers remained deeply embedded in RIA portfolios but showed limited incremental RIA-count growth in the quarter. InvestmentNews reported that iShares, State Street, Vanguard and Invesco were essentially flat or marginally lower by RIA count, while Vanguard edged up slightly. Schwab added 40 net RIAs, while VanEck and Dimensional each posted 2.5% growth among top-10 issuers. JPMorgan and WisdomTree also added net RIAs.

That pattern underscores a key distribution reality: the largest issuers already have substantial penetration, so the competitive question is increasingly retention rather than first-time adoption. Smaller and mid-sized ETF providers may have more room to add new RIA relationships, especially if they offer active, thematic, real-asset or income strategies that solve specific allocation needs. At the same time, incumbent providers can defend market share through model portfolios, practice-management support, trading liquidity, brand trust and broad platform access.

The Q1 findings build on AdvizorPro’s broader 2026 RIA ETF Trends Report, which analyzed 13F filings from 4,237 registered investment advisors to examine how ETF allocations evolved from Q4 2024 to Q4 2025. That annual report found that the average number of ETFs held per firm increased 13.7% year over year and that more than 71% of firms increased their ETF count, signaling diversification rather than consolidation. It also found that turnover was slowing as ETF portfolios matured, suggesting advisors were moving from experimentation toward refinement.

The broader ETF market backdrop remains supportive. The Investment Company Institute reported on May 28 that U.S. exchange-traded fund assets reached $14.80 trillion in April 2026, up from $13.55 trillion in March and $10.42 trillion in April 2025. ICI said ETF assets rose by $1.25 trillion, or 9.2%, in April alone and increased by $4.38 trillion, or 42.0%, over the prior 12 months. Net issuance totaled $164.9 billion in April and $612.5 billion year to date.

The ICI data also showed the scale of asset-class breadth available to advisors. As of April, domestic equity ETFs held $9.42 trillion, global and international equity ETFs held $2.52 trillion, bond ETFs held $2.44 trillion and commodity ETFs held $367.9 billion. The number of ETFs also rose to 4,740 from 3,876 a year earlier. That expanding product set gives advisors more implementation choices, but it also makes fund selection more difficult.

FactSet’s April ETF summary similarly pointed to rapid industry growth. It reported U.S.-listed ETF assets of $14.7 trillion at the end of April and estimated April inflows of $171.4 billion, bringing year-to-date inflows to $643.9 billion in the first four months of 2026. FactSet also noted that April saw 93 ETF launches, with 74 of them, or about 80%, actively managed. That launch pattern is consistent with the RIA adoption data showing active and differentiated products gaining attention.

For wealth managers, the portfolio implications are mixed. Broader ETF holdings can improve diversification, give advisors more precise implementation tools and help clients access exposures that once required mutual funds, limited partnerships or separately managed accounts. Real assets and alternatives may help address inflation sensitivity and equity concentration. Active ETFs may add flexibility in less efficient markets or in strategies where index exposure is not sufficient.

But the same trends can also add complexity. Some real-asset funds are highly cyclical, commodity products may be affected by futures-curve structure, energy and natural-resource equities can behave like equity-sector bets, and option-overlay or long-short strategies require careful evaluation of upside caps, downside participation, tax treatment and liquidity. Higher fees may be justified in some strategies, but only if advisors can clearly connect the cost to a client outcome.

For ETF issuers, the AdvizorPro data points to a market in which product shelf space is still expanding, but the bar for differentiation is rising. A generic ETF launch is unlikely to win sustained RIA adoption without a clear use case, strong education, platform availability and evidence that the strategy belongs in a diversified portfolio. Issuers with credible active managers, real-asset expertise, income solutions or risk-management frameworks may be better positioned than firms relying only on broad market exposure.

The latest RIA ETF data also has implications for advisor-client communication. As portfolios include more specialized ETFs, advisors will need to explain why a fund is present, what risk it is intended to address, how it should behave in different market environments and when it might be removed. That discipline is particularly important for private wealth clients who are sensitive to drawdowns, taxes and income stability.

The first-quarter expansion therefore does not simply show more ETF usage. It shows a more mature advisor market in which ETFs are becoming the implementation layer for a wider range of strategic and tactical decisions. Real assets gained share because inflation and diversification remain central concerns. Active ETFs gained traction because advisors are looking for manager skill inside a tax-efficient wrapper. Higher-fee strategies found buyers because some advisors appear willing to pay for precision when the product has a defined portfolio role.

The result is a more competitive and more complex ETF marketplace. For RIAs, the opportunity is to build portfolios with broader tools and greater customization. For clients, the benefit depends on whether that added complexity produces clearer outcomes after fees, taxes and risk. For issuers, the message from Q1 is direct: advisor demand is still expanding, but the products winning attention are those that can justify their place in increasingly deliberate ETF lineups.