ETFs: “Everyone's caught up in the AI craze”

The Middle East crisis has not dampened interest in ETFs. Investors are pouring money into global, U.S., and—above all—semiconductor and AI stocks. More specialized sectors, such as aerospace and rare earth metals, are also attracting interest.

May 12, 2026. FRANKFURT (Deutsche Börse). The AI boom is back—the Nasdaq 100 is climbing to new highs. This is also evident in ETF trading. At ICF Bank, the focus is very much on semiconductor and AI companies, as Ivo Orlemann reports. “Things have quieted down a bit around gold, oil, and gas ETCs.” Michael Norizin of Lang & Schwarz agrees. “Our focus is on tech stocks,” he explains. Overall, trading volumes remain high, as Frank Mohr of Société Générale reports. “And purchases clearly outnumber sales.”

In trading of large index trackers, global and U.S. ETFs dominate by a wide margin, with turnover shares of 40 and 33 percent, as Mohr reports. The favorites are MSCI World, MSCI ACWI, FTSE All World, and S&P 500 ETFs, such as those from iShares, Xtrackers, and SPDR. European and German stocks are less prominent, with a slight buying surplus for European stocks and a selling surplus for German stocks.

New highs in emerging markets as well

But it’s not just the U.S. that’s hitting new highs right now: Emerging market stocks have also climbed to all-time highs, at least as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. However, Orlemann currently expects the HSBC MSCI Emerging Markets Index (IE000KCS7J59) to see some selling pressure.

As always, the VanEck Morningstar Developed Markets Dividend Leaders (NL0011683594) is in high demand. The L&G Gerd Kommer Multifactor Equity (IE0001UQQ933) is also very popular among ICF clients. It has already raised over 1 billion euros in assets. Recently, “ETF guru” Kommer announced another ETF, the L&G Gerd Kommer Multi Asset Strategy.