ETF Prime · Nov 11, 2026
With Jay Jacobs, U.S. Head of Equity ETFs at BlackRock
Photo via blackrock.com
BlackRock's global ETF platform took in almost $450 billion through the third quarter, on pace for a record year. Jay Jacobs, U.S. head of equity ETFs at BlackRock, told Nate Geraci on ETF Prime that the breadth behind that figure matters more than its size.
Most ETF money still goes into broad, low-cost index funds. This year a growing share has gone into narrow funds built around a country, an industry subsector or a theme, which Jay reads as a sign the market has no consensus.
"Over 40 different funds have seen over a billion dollars come in this year... this isn't just a plain vanilla kind of US core exposure story." — Jay Jacobs
Jay oversees the US equity side of iShares, the ETF business that collected those flows.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 7 numbers that matter.
Key Takeaways
iShares took in almost $450 billion by the end of Q3, on pace for a record year
More than 40 funds have each gathered over $1 billion this year
IALT, a liquid-alternatives ETF, is up "in the mid teens" with a beta to US equities of about 0.3 or 0.4
About 50% of S&P 500 risk comes from AI-related stocks, in BlackRock's estimate
AI beneficiaries have beaten AI builders by about 25 to 30% over the past month
Buffer ETFs, bond funds and Bitcoin custody are sold on the same theme: risk management
1. A Record Year for iShares
The headline number is large, and Jay opened with it.
iShares is on pace for record inflows
"By the end of Q3 it was almost 450 billion in inflows this year, on pace for record amounts of money coming in." — Jay Jacobs
About $41 billion of that went into what BlackRock calls "precision exposures": country, subsector and thematic funds. Jay tied the demand to high dispersion, meaning individual stocks and sectors are moving very differently from one another. New funds have filled quickly. The Nasdaq-100 fund IQQ took in over $700 million in a few months, and the AI Beneficiaries fund drew over $250 million in under a month.
