The ETF boom in Italy: between record growth and decision-making paralysis

The offer increases, but the clarity fades. The Italian ETF market is experiencing a phase of unprecedented expansion, yet the majority of savers are struggling to find their way. Today, over 2.4 million Italians use these tools, pushing the total masses invested beyond the 39 billion euro mark - a figure that marks an exact doubling over the last five years.

Faced with this rush to invest, the options available on the Italian Stock Exchange have literally doubled in a decade. In the first eight months of 2026 alone, 228 new listings were recorded, in addition to the 287 products landed on the list during 2025. An enormous variety that brings with it a typical paradox of the digital age: excess choice generates paralysis.

The paradox of abundance

According to the latest survey conducted by Moneyfarm analyzing the behavior of its user base, 51% of investors say they are confused when faced with a catalog that has over 2 thousand options. The main issue is the similarity of the products: for 45% of the sample the greatest difficulty lies precisely in the impossibility of distinguishing two apparently identical instruments.

Added to this are the difficulty of finding transparent details (19%) and the fear of making an evaluation error penalizing one's returns (19%). One piece of data summarizes this concentration better than others: 80% of purchase orders focus on just 14% of the ETFs that are actually tradable.

The identikit of those who work independently traces the profile of a predominantly male audience (87.5%), young or adult (60.3% are in the 25-44 age group) and with a medium-high level of education. These are savers who look to the long term (80.8%) and who allocate the largest share of resources to the stock sector (63.4%), followed by bonds (25.3%).

The report card for evaluating the tools

To respond to the request of 60% of those interviewed, who state that they need objective parameters to compare options on the market, the financial platform has introduced the ETF Selector.

The system is based on the Moneyfarm Index, a proprietary scoring from 0 to 10 that examines a universe of over 1,500 products. The index compares ETFs belonging to the same categories by analyzing a series of key factors: management costs (Ter) and liquidity; the breadth of assets managed and seniority on the market; the spread between bid and ask and the adherence of the price to the value of the asset (Nav); the replication method and the securities lending policy.

The declared objective is to transfer the same analysis methodology used for 15 years by the asset allocation team in asset management to the private investor's dashboard, providing synthetic but independently verifiable data.

Democratize professional selection