Financial advisors are projected to increase their clients' portfolio allocation to ETFs to 7.8% in 2013, according to Cerulli's Exchange-Traded Fund Markets 2013 report. This is modestly up from 7.1% two years ago.
"This is notable because growth has been stagnant in previous years," said Alec Papazian, associate director in Cerulli's asset management practice. The report also identified major opportunities for ETF providers to grow their businesses.
The study emphasized the importance of product diversification in less crowded ETF categories. For example, there are more domestic stock ETFs compared to any other type of fund. ETFs focused on other investment categories like international bonds and stocks could be an area of asset growth.