3 New ETFs Finding Early Traction With Investors

Key Points

• A number of dominant, well-established ETFs tend to capture outsized interest from investors.
• Still, new funds are launched every month, and some offer compelling and unique strategies that have the potential to generate strong returns.
• RILA, QIDX, and TSEL are three funds launched in 2025 that might interest investors seeking something different from the usual.

The number of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offered in the U.S. is approaching 4,000, with providers adding new funds to the slate each month. A small number of these funds, including massive titans like the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust NYSEARCA: SPY, which has more than half a trillion dollars in assets, tend to dominate the space.

However, investors keen to capitalize on specialized investment strategies and unique management styles may look to ETFs launched recently. It may take most ETFs quite a long time to gain recognition among a broad base of investors, but a handful of funds that have launched in 2025 have managed to build up tens of millions of dollars in assets despite the many turbulent moments for the broader market so far this year. While there's no guarantee these funds will become the next SPY, they may be worth a look for investors seeking new ETF opportunities.

Actively Managed Growth Fund Outperforms S&P 500 in Volatile Market

One of the smaller ETF providers, Indexperts, has recently launched three actively managed funds with a balanced variety of approaches. The first, the Indexperts Gorilla Aggressive Growth ETF NYSEARCA: RILA, is a growth-focused fund that takes the majority of its portfolio constituents from a broader group of 3,000 stocks across market caps that are in the 25th percentile or greater in trading volume and average daily float of shares trading and which excel in various growth metrics.

About a third of the portfolio is drawn from a group of large-cap stocks ranked using similar metrics.

The result is that RILA's basket of securities includes about 175 high-growth names, with major players like Microsoft Corp. NASDAQ: MSFT next to smaller ones like Deckers Outdoor Corp. NYSE: DECK.

Though RILA has faced a difficult first few months due to the broader market's ups and downs, it has outperformed the S&P 500 with a return of -7% or so year-to-date (YTD), while the market's decline is closer to 10%.

New QIDX ETF Offers Active Strategy on Quality Earnings

A second new offering by Indexperts, the Indexperts Quality Earnings Focused ETF NYSEARCA: QIDX shares an active management approach and an expense ratio of 0.50% with RILA above. Beyond that, though, the funds take different strategies—QIDX focuses on companies with a consistent history of and a strong prospect for future earnings stability and improvement.

Like RILA, QIDX builds its portfolio from companies with high average trading volumes and significant average daily share float, spanning multiple market capitalizations. It ranks these companies based on a range of factors, including profitability, liquidity, operating efficiency, momentum, and revenue growth, among other key metrics.

QIDX has somewhat fewer names in its basket than RILA, with only about 130 constituents, but they are similarly varied, and the asset base is well distributed across those positions. Some of the leading portfolio members include T-Mobile US Inc. NASDAQ: TMUS, American Express Company NYSE: AXP, and Williams Companies Inc. NYSE: WMB.

QIDX is down about 4% YTD, meaning it has also outperformed the broader market since its inception. It has remained particularly strong in the month leading to mid-April, during which the impact of new tariff policies had the largest impact on stocks everywhere.

Touchstone’s TSEL ETF Offers Focused Growth Strategy

Touchstone Sands Capital US Select Growth ETF NASDAQ: TSEL is another actively managed fund in the Touchstone line of funds, which shares a focus on capturing upside potential while minimizing downside risk. TSEL targets U.S.-based large- and mid-cap companies with better-than-average potential for revenue or earnings growth.

With just 25 to 35 companies in its portfolio at any given time, TSEL is not as widely distributed or diversified as QIDX, RILA, or many other growth-focused funds already on the market. Rather, the fund provider takes a distinctively active approach to respond to market conditions with portfolio adjustments consistently.

TSEL's portfolio includes a mixture of big-name stocks—largely tech titans like Microsoft—and much smaller ones with room for growth. This latter category includes glucose monitoring healthcare technology firm DexCom Inc. NASDAQ: DXCM, for example.

With an expense ratio of 0.67%, TSEL is somewhat more costly than RILA or QIDX, but it remains cheaper than many pre-existing actively managed funds.