Which ASX ETF Categories Are Leading? Every ASX Exchange Traded Product Ranked

Written by Christopher Hall, AdvDipFP | Authorised Representative, AFSL 526688 | Updated September 2026

Data current as of week ending 4 September 2026. This page is updated every week.

This ranking covers every one of the 403 exchange traded products quoted on the ASX, sorted into the exchange's own 21 categories, and it is recalculated in full every week from the settled Friday close – most recently the close of Friday 4 September 2026. Nothing is sampled and no category is selected: all 19 categories with constituents this week appear below.

Which ASX ETF category is performing best depends entirely on whether performance is measured by breadth or by leadership, and this week both measures agree for the first time on record. Across all 403 ASX-listed exchange traded products sorted into the 21 categories the exchange itself publishes, Crypto Assets recorded the strongest average across every fund in the group over the quarter to 4 September 2026 at +24.35% — and also produced the strongest three-fund average at +25.89%. This is the first week since tracking began (21 July 2026) that one category has led both measures at once, and it ends Equity – Global Sectors' six-run hold on the leadership measure; Global Sectors fell to second on leadership at +17.33%. This page ranks every category on both measures each week, keeps the running record of which category has led most often, and explains what the gap between the two numbers reveals.

What Are the 21 ASX ETF Categories, and How Are They Ranked?

The ASX ETF categories are the 21 groupings the exchange applies to every quoted exchange traded product in its monthly Exchange Traded Product report — spanning Australian and global equity, property, fixed income, cash, mixed asset, currency, commodity and crypto. The taxonomy is the exchange's, not ours, which is what makes it a neutral frame for comparison.

Each category is measured two ways across four rolling periods — one week, one month, one quarter and one year:

• All-member average (breadth) — the equal-weighted mean return of every fund in the category reporting data for that period.

• Top-3 average (leadership) — the mean return of the three strongest funds in that category for that period.

Two measures are necessary because a category is not a single instrument. Equity – Global Sectors alone holds 79 funds spanning cybersecurity, cloud software, semiconductors, gold miners, uranium, hydrogen and biotech. One average across all 79 describes none of them.

Method, stated in full. 403 actively classified exchange traded products as at 4 September 2026, from the weekly ASX ETP performance export taken at the settled close of Friday 4 September. Eleven individual company shares in the watchlist were excluded as not being exchange traded products, as were index and benchmark rows. Every remaining product is assigned to one of the exchange's 21 categories and each category is then reduced to two numbers per period: the equal-weighted mean of every fund reporting data, and the mean of its three strongest. There is no scoring model, no size weighting and no discretionary overlay – a fund with no reported return for a period is excluded from that period only, never counted as zero, and a fund whose row is zero across all four periods is treated as reporting no data. Nineteen of the 21 categories had constituents this week; the other two reappear automatically when their constituents report.

Method refinement, 14 August 2026. A fund whose export row shows a literal zero in all four periods is now treated as reporting no data for that week rather than a 0.00% return, and the full four-week history has been recalculated on that basis. Six rows are affected each week, and the change matters only in the smallest categories, where a single zero could pull an average toward it: for the quarter to 7 August, Australian Indices reads +2.14% on the corrected basis rather than +1.43%, and Equity – Infrastructure covers seven funds rather than six. No category leader, in any period or any week, changes as a result.

Read another way, this page answers a simple question: which are the best performing ASX exchange traded funds right now, grouped by what they actually invest in rather than by fund name. Ranking the categories rather than the individual funds shows where the gains are concentrated, and which parts of the market have gained the most over the quarter.

Which ASX ETF Categories Led This Week?

Crypto Assets led both measures this week — the first time one category has swept breadth and leadership on the same quarterly reading since tracking began. In every prior run the two measures named different winners; this week they agree.

Category	Funds	Breadth Q%	Leadership Q%
Crypto Assets	5	+24.35	+25.89
Equity – Australia Small/Mid Cap	9	+5.12	+8.89
Equity – Australia	10	+4.61	+5.20
Equity – Australia Sectors	27	+4.54	+8.87
Equity – Australia Strategy	27	+3.73	+10.62
Equity – Global	34	+2.97	+6.27
Equity – Global Strategy	86	+2.83	+15.48
Mixed Asset	16	+2.50	+5.02
Cash	5	+1.14	+1.16
Fixed Income – Fixed Term	4	+1.04	+1.17
Australian Indices	6	+0.89	+2.25
Currency	3	+0.66	+0.66
Fixed Income – Australian Dollar	43	+0.58	+2.94
Equity – Emerging Markets	9	+0.26	+4.41
Equity – Global Sectors	79	+0.12	+17.33
Property – Australia	3	−0.37	−0.37
Equity – Infrastructure	7	−0.50	+0.98
Commodity	13	−1.34	+2.93
Equity – Asia	17	−2.60	+6.04

All figures cover the 13-week rolling period to the settled close of 4 September 2026, equal-weighted across the funds in each category reporting data. Property – Australia and Currency hold three funds each, so their breadth and leadership figures are identical.

The funds carrying the leading quarterly figure were QETH, VBTC and IBIT — an ether fund and two bitcoin funds, named as evidence for the category's number rather than as a ranking of funds. The individual-fund view is maintained in the weekly Top 10 ASX ETF ranking, and what QETH holds against two software funds is examined in two software funds and an ether fund compared.

Breadth and leadership converged inside Crypto Assets this week, which is the more unusual half of the story. The category's breadth-vs-leadership gap is 1.53 percentage points (+24.35% breadth against +25.89% leadership) — near the narrowest on the board — meaning the move was broad across all five funds in the category rather than carried by two or three names. Equity – Global Sectors, by contrast, still shows a 17.21-point gap between its +0.12% breadth and +17.33% leadership. A narrow gap describes a category moving together; a wide one describes a category whose average conceals its own leaders.

The finding worth keeping: Crypto Assets' quarterly breadth was negative in each of its first four runs and has now more than doubled its previous best. The full series reads −13.32%, −15.29%, −19.94%, −19.61%, −0.21%, +11.19% and now +24.35% — four runs of deterioration, a flat reading, then two consecutive positive runs, the second more than double the first. Its one-year breadth average is −47.96%, still the weakest on the board but improving for a third consecutive week (from −80.78% three runs ago), which is base-effect arithmetic as last year's crash rolls out of the trailing window as much as it is new strength. A category can lead the quarter outright while its one-year figure is still deeply negative — the clearest example the record holds.

Equity – Global Sectors' six-run hold on quarterly leadership ended this week. It placed second at +17.33%, down from +25.47% the week before, while its breadth average fell further still, from +2.34% to +0.12% — almost flat across all 79 funds. This is the first run since 21 July 2026 that Global Sectors has not led the leadership measure outright.

One category, four unrelated engines across four periods. Equity – Global Sectors' three strongest funds differ on every period measured this week: over the week they were FOOD, FUEL and BNKS — an agriculture fund, an energy fund and a banks fund; over the month MNRS, GDX and VOLT — two gold-miner funds and a lithium fund; over the quarter CURE, BNKS and BUGG — biotechnology, banks and cybersecurity; and over the year SEMI, HGEN and HVLU — semiconductors, hydrogen and an international-value fund. The category label describes a bucket, not a trade, and this week is the widest spread of unrelated engines the record has shown inside one category.

Breadth was broadly negative this week: only 3 of the 19 categories with constituents raised their quarterly average and 16 fell. Crypto Assets accounted for almost all of the improvement on its own (+13.16 points); the other two gainers, Property – Australia and Equity – Infrastructure, each moved less than two points. The only other run with as few improvers was 21 August, also 3 of 19 — this run matches that low, on data alone, without asserting what follows it.

A leading category is a momentum observation, not an endorsement. A high ranking records price movement that has already occurred over a defined period. It carries no assessment of merit, value or suitability.

Why Does a Category's Average Hide Its Strongest Funds?

The broader a category, the less its average describes anything inside it. The five widest gaps between leadership and breadth this week:

Category	Breadth Q%	Leadership Q%	Gap (pp)
Equity – Global Sectors	+0.12	+17.33	17.2
Equity – Global Strategy	+2.83	+15.48	12.7
Equity – Asia	−2.60	+6.04	8.6
Equity – Australia Strategy	+3.73	+10.62	6.9
Equity – Australia Sectors	+4.54	+8.87	4.3

Equity – Global Sectors remains the clearest case even though its own gap narrowed this week. Its seven-run range now reads 33.5, 26.4, 29.1, 28.9, 16.8, 23.1 and 17.2 percentage points — a second narrowing after a single-week widening, and this time on a genuine loss rather than compression: leadership fell from +25.47% to +17.33% while breadth collapsed from +2.34% to +0.12%. Across 79 funds, three still produce a figure the other 76 do not share, but the whole category cooled together this week rather than the leaders pulling further ahead.

The scale is still large against the rest of the board even as it shrinks against its own history: at 17.2 percentage points it remains the widest gap, but the margin over the next-largest, Equity – Global Strategy at 12.7 points across 86 funds, is now the narrowest ratio on record (1.4 times, against 2.1 times a week earlier).

Equity – Asia is this week's instructive case. Its breadth average is −2.60% — the weakest reading on the board — while its three strongest funds averaged +6.04%, a gap of 8.6 points, the third-widest this week. A category can be falling on average and still contain funds that rose, which is the entire reason both measures are published rather than one.

The dispersion is visible in Commodity too, and there it runs across periods rather than across funds. Over the quarter to 4 September the palladium product ETPMPD was the standout at +6.68% and the Bloomberg Commodity index tracker BCOM added +2.39%, while the gold-bullion products (QAU, GOLD, PMGOLD, GXLD, GLDN, NUGG) sat in a tight negative band of roughly −0.3% to −1.4%, and the silver product ETPMAG was the weakest at about −10.9%, ahead of the platinum product ETPMPT at about −5.4% — which is the arithmetic behind Commodity's −1.34% breadth reading. Note also that the gold miner funds do not sit here: MNRS and GDX are equities and are classified in Equity – Global Sectors, which is why the metal and the miner separate across two categories every week. Those movements are recorded alongside one another; the data establishes no causal link between them.

What relative strength research indicates about group leadership

Leadership within a group, rather than the group average, is the measure with published empirical support. Thomas Bulkowski, an independent market researcher and author of Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns (Wiley), ranked industries by relative strength across a database running from January 1995 to November 2007. Stocks in the top-ranked industry group advanced +23% over three months against −1% for the bottom-ranked group; extended to one year, +80% against +1%.

Bulkowski's data, published at thepatternsite.com, showed that a rules-based approach — buying the three strongest stocks from the highest-ranked industry by relative strength and selling when that rank decayed — generated average returns of 28.1% per trade from 2000 to 2008, compared to 2.3% for the S&P 500 over the same hold periods.

The parallel to the leadership measure is direct — Bulkowski's rule selected the three strongest constituents of the strongest group. The research was conducted on United States equities across an earlier period and is practitioner research rather than peer-reviewed work, so it establishes no expected return for any ASX fund.

The FMP Momentum Profile — published daily and accessible to FMP YouTube Momentum Profile members — tracks the market conditions that form the context for thematic articles like this one. Members receive early access to the educational data discussed in each weekly session.

Which ASX ETF Category Has Led Most Weeks?

This is the record that accumulates. Each weekly run appends one row per category to a continuing dataset, so the question of which category leads persistently — rather than once — becomes answerable over time.

Leadership log — all runs to date

Week ending	Breadth leader (quarter)	Leadership leader (quarter)	Funds behind the figure
21 Jul 2026	Equity – Global (+5.72%)	Equity – Global Sectors (+35.46%)	BUGG, HACK, SEMI
31 Jul 2026	Equity – Global (+7.71%)	Equity – Global Sectors (+30.27%)	BUGG, HACK, TECH
7 Aug 2026	Equity – Global (+6.89%)	Equity – Global Sectors (+32.86%)	BUGG, HACK, TECH
14 Aug 2026	Equity – Global (+7.99%)	Equity – Global Sectors (+33.94%)	BUGG, CLDD, HACK
21 Aug 2026	Equity – Australia Small/Mid Cap (+7.31%)	Equity – Global Sectors (+18.95%)	CURE, CLDD, BUGG
28 Aug 2026	Crypto Assets (+11.19%)	Equity – Global Sectors (+25.47%)	BUGG, CLDD, CURE
4 Sep 2026	Crypto Assets (+24.35%)	Crypto Assets (+25.89%)	QETH, VBTC, IBIT

Weeks at #1 — all-time (tracking began 21 July 2026)

Category	Weeks as breadth leader	Weeks as leadership leader	Weeks in leadership top 3
Equity – Global Sectors	0	6	7
Equity – Global Strategy	0	0	7
Equity – Global	4	0	2
Crypto Assets	2	1	2
Equity – Asia	0	0	2
Equity – Australia Strategy	0	0	1
Equity – Australia Small/Mid Cap	1	0	0

Seven runs, and this week produced the record's first double-first: one category leading both measures at once. Equity – Global Sectors held the quarterly leadership lead for six consecutive runs before Crypto Assets ended the streak this week; Equity – Global Strategy has appeared in the leadership top three in all seven runs without ever leading it. Equity – Global held the breadth lead for the first four runs, lost it to Equity – Australia Small/Mid Cap in the fifth, then to Crypto Assets in the sixth and seventh — Crypto Assets is now the only category besides Equity – Global to have led breadth more than once.

One point about the leadership record that is easy to misread. Equity – Global Sectors led six straight runs, but not with the same funds: BUGG/HACK/SEMI, then BUGG/HACK/TECH twice, then BUGG/CLDD/HACK, CURE/CLDD/BUGG and BUGG/CLDD/CURE. The category stayed continuously in front for six runs while six different funds — BUGG, HACK, SEMI, TECH, CLDD and CURE — passed through its top three, and only BUGG appeared in all six. Persistence at the category level and persistence at the fund level are different things, and only the first is visible in the column above. This week's new leader, Crypto Assets, ran the same three funds — QETH, VBTC and IBIT — across both the breadth calculation and the leadership calculation, because the category holds only five funds in total.

Tracking commenced 21 July 2026. With seven runs recorded, the minimum-history threshold for a permanent category page (eight runs) is now one week away, expected around 11 September 2026. This page is where that record is published as it builds.

How Do Momentum Traders Use ASX ETF Category Data?

Category data functions as a top-down filter — locating where strength is concentrated before any individual fund is examined. The academic case for treating prior relative strength as informative is long established.

Research by Jegadeesh and Titman, published in the Journal of Finance in 1993, found that momentum strategies generated 12.01% annual excess returns over a 24-year period — establishing momentum as one of the most robust anomalies in financial markets.

Applied to categories, three observations follow. The leadership measure identifies which group holds genuine strength, since a category can rank poorly on breadth and still contain the market's strongest funds. The gap between the two measures shows whether that strength is broad or narrow — and, tracked week to week, whether it is broadening or concentrating. And tracking both reveals when leadership transfers, which is the reason the record is kept rather than the snapshot.

Momentum traders apply comparable reasoning at the stock-sector level through the sector rotation entry framework. ASX ETF categories are the exchange's own product taxonomy, distinct from the Finer Market Points thematic classifications used on company pages; the two are never mapped onto one another.

Category data does not replace fund-level analysis. Fees, structure, currency hedging and index methodology all vary within a category and none appear in a return average — the regional detail for the Asian cohort is set out in Asian ETFs on the ASX, and the currency question in the hedged versus unhedged decision. Traders in this situation may wish to speak with a qualified financial adviser about whether a particular product suits their circumstances.

Conclusion

One category led both measures at once for the first time on record, and it was the category carrying the board's worst one-year figure. Crypto Assets produced the strongest breadth average of any category over the quarter to 4 September 2026 at +24.35% and the strongest leadership average at +25.89% — the first double-first in seven tracked runs — ending Equity – Global Sectors' six-run hold on quarterly leadership (it placed second at +17.33%, against a breadth average of just +0.12% across its 79 funds). Only 3 of the 19 categories with constituents improved this week and 16 fell, with Crypto Assets responsible for almost all of the improvement on its own. Christopher Hall updates these ASX ETF categories every week on this page, and the accumulating record – not any single week – is what will show whether this reversal persists or the prior pattern reasserts itself.

Access the Underlying Data

This page draws on publicly available research data compiled for the FMP editorial program. The FMP Momentum Profile and the weekly session recordings — where ASX momentum stocks and the market conditions covered in thematic articles like this one are reviewed in real time — are accessible to FMP YouTube Momentum Profile members. Members receive early access to the educational data that forms the basis of articles like this one. For information on FMP YouTube Momentum Profile membership, visit the FMP YouTube membership page.

About the Author

Christopher Hall, AdvDipFP, is an Authorised Representative operating under AFSL 526688 and writes the Finer Market Points educational program covering Australian momentum markets. He maintains the weekly ASX ETF categories record published on this page.

Remember that past performance is no guarantee of future results, and all trading involves risk.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the ASX ETF categories?

The ASX sorts every quoted exchange traded product into 21 categories in its monthly Exchange Traded Product report: Equity – Australia, Australia Small/Mid Cap, Australia Sectors, Australia Strategy, Global, Asia, Emerging Markets, Global Sectors, Global Strategy and Infrastructure; Property – Australia and Property – Global; Fixed Income – Australian Dollar, Fixed Income – Global and Fixed Income – Fixed Term; plus Cash, Mixed Asset, Currency, Commodity, Crypto Assets and Australian Indices.

Which ASX ETF category performed best this quarter?

Two views converge for the first time for the quarter ending 4 September 2026, across 403 classified products. Crypto Assets led on both measures at once — the average of all funds in the category at +24.35%, and the average of its three strongest funds at +25.89% — the first time one category has led both measures in the same run since tracking began 21 July 2026. Equity – Global Sectors, which had led the leadership measure for the six previous runs, placed second at +17.33%. Both figures are equal-weighted and cover that single 13-week window.

Which ASX ETF category has led most weeks?

Tracking began on 21 July 2026. After seven runs, Equity – Global Sectors holds six weeks as leadership leader on the quarterly period, more than any other category, though its streak ended in the seventh run when Crypto Assets took over. Equity – Global holds four weeks as breadth leader, the most of any category, but has not led since the fourth run; Crypto Assets has now led breadth twice and leadership once, including this week's double-first. Equity – Global Sectors and Equity – Global Strategy are the only categories to have appeared in the leadership top three in every run. Seven runs are not a trend — a meaningful tally requires roughly eight weekly runs, expected around 11 September 2026, and this page publishes the record as it accumulates.

What is the difference between an all-member average and a top-3 average?

The all-member average is the equal-weighted mean return of every fund in a category reporting data, describing breadth. The top-3 average is the mean of that category's three strongest funds over the same period, describing leadership. A wide gap indicates a small number of funds are producing the category's return while most constituents lag.

Why can an ETF category average be misleading?

Categories can contain funds holding unrelated assets. Equity – Global Sectors held 79 funds covering cybersecurity, cloud software, semiconductors, gold miners, uranium, hydrogen and biotech as at 4 September 2026. Its three strongest funds averaged +17.33% over the quarter while the average across all 79 was +0.12% — a gap of 17.2 percentage points, meaning the category figure described neither the leaders nor the rest. The clearest demonstration is that its three strongest funds differ on every period measured: FOOD, FUEL and BNKS over the week; MNRS, GDX and VOLT over the month; CURE, BNKS and BUGG over the quarter; and SEMI, HGEN and HVLU over the year — agriculture, energy, banks, gold miners, lithium, biotechnology, cybersecurity, semiconductors, hydrogen and international value, all inside one label.

Did ASX ETF categories improve this week?

Mostly not. Only 3 of the nineteen categories with constituents raised their quarterly breadth average over the week to 4 September 2026 and sixteen fell — the joint-weakest breadth reading in the seven-run record, matching 21 August. Crypto Assets accounted for almost all of the improvement on its own, rising 13.16 percentage points and taking both the breadth and leadership lead in the same move. These are seven readings of a rolling 13-week window taken across seven weeks, and the data records the change without establishing a cause.

How many ETFs are listed on the ASX?

This analysis classified 403 actively tracked exchange traded products as at 4 September 2026, covering index ETFs, active ETFs, structured products and commodity trusts. Eleven individual company shares appearing in the source watchlist were excluded because they are not exchange traded products, as were index and benchmark rows. Coverage is the whole ASX exchange traded product universe rather than a selected shortlist, it is re-read every week from a fresh export, and the figure moves as products list and delist.

Which ASX ETF category performed worst this quarter?

Equity – Asia recorded the weakest breadth figure at −2.60% for the quarter to 4 September 2026, followed by Commodity at −1.34%, Equity – Infrastructure at −0.50% and Property – Australia at −0.37% — the only four negative readings on the board. The one-year measure tells a different story: Crypto Assets is weakest there at −47.96%, despite leading the board this week on both the quarter and the month — the same category can carry this run's strongest reading and the record's weakest one-year reading at once. Measured on leadership instead, Property – Australia is the only negative reading at −0.37%. All figures are equal-weighted across that single 13-week window.

Does a top-ranked ETF category mean it is a good investment?

No. Category rankings describe price movement that has already occurred across a defined historical period. They are momentum observations rather than assessments of merit, value or suitability, and they exclude fees, structure, currency hedging and index methodology — all of which differ between funds inside a single category.

How often is this ASX ETF category data updated?

Weekly. The series is recalculated in full each week from a fresh ASX exchange traded product performance export taken at the settled Friday close, and appended to a continuing record, so changes in leadership can be tracked run to run. Seven runs exist as at 4 September 2026, the first dated 21 July 2026. Each update reports the same two measures — all-member average and top-3 average — across one-week, one-month, one-quarter and one-year rolling periods, and no past run is revised except to correct a stated method change.

How is this different from the ASX ETF momentum leaders list?

This page ranks the 21 ASX ETF categories as groups and names individual funds only as evidence for a category's figure. The momentum leaders list ranks individual funds by quarterly return without reference to category. A fund can appear on that list while its category ranks modestly on breadth — which is what occurred with the cybersecurity, banks and biotechnology funds inside Equity – Global Sectors over the quarter to 4 September 2026, where a +17.33% leadership figure sat against a +0.12% breadth average across 79 funds, which ranked fifteenth of nineteen on breadth.

Sources

#	Source	Type
1	Christopher Hall, Finer Market Points. ASX exchange traded product category dataset — 403 products across 21 ASX categories, weekly ASX ETP performance export (Australian Warrant Exchange, an ASX market), weeks ending 21 July, 31 July, 7 August, 14 August, 21 August, 28 August and 4 September 2026. Seven runs on record; each week's figures are computed from the settled Friday close and appended without revision.	FMP proprietary data
2	ASX Limited. Exchange Traded Product Report — category taxonomy for ASX-quoted exchange traded products (2026).	Published research
3	Bulkowski, T. Industry relative strength performance study, January 1995 – November 2007, and rules-based industry rank test, 2000–2008 (550 stocks, 114 trades). thepatternsite.com.	Published research
4	Bulkowski, T. Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns (Wiley).	Published research
5	Jegadeesh, N., & Titman, S. (1993). Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency. Journal of Finance, 48(1), 65–91.	Published research

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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