The AI wobble has investors rethinking what’s in their portfolio
By Trinisha Chanka, AMETF Strategy Lead, Ninety One
In early November, US tech shares lost roughly $2.5 trillion in a single session. Nvidia fell about 9%, and the Nasdaq 100 had its worst day since the early weeks of Covid.
By the following week, the market was bouncing back as if nothing had happened.
Days like this are a useful reminder of what may sit inside a global equity portfolio. A handful of AI-linked giants now drive a large share of global index returns, which means anyone who owns “the market” owns that bet.
For much of the last decade, that worked in investors’ favour as markets rose, particularly in the last 3 years on the back of AI-fuelled growth.
Index funds remain a sensible core for many portfolios. They’re low cost and transparent and have served investors well, especially in rising markets.
But when markets get ever more concentrated, a correction such as the one we saw feels more severe, leading investors to question what they own and why.
Should they consider an allocation to portfolios where an experienced team makes deliberate choices?
Investors are increasingly able to do that inside an ETF wrapper. Originally dominated by index trackers, actively managed ETFs have taken in a record $637 billion for the ten months to end October.
The wider ETF market is worth US$23.7 trillion and on course to grow to US$37 trillion by 2030.
Active is not replacing passive. It is widening the choice inside the same wrapper.
Who is driving the growth? Largely, we believe, a new breed of investor. They open a trading app, see a live price for a listed instrument (ETF or share) and buy.
They expect to watch the price move in real time and don’t want to fill in any paperwork. They like the efficiency of the listed format, and now they have the option of professional investment judgement within it.
For years, active management was missing from that format. Now that regulations have opened up, global leaders are responding. State Street, one of the world’s largest ETF houses and a leader in index ETFs, is partnering with Ninety One to list active ETFs in the US and Europe.
When a firm that built its name on index ETFs sees room for both, it tells you where the market is heading.
South Africa is moving the same way, and quickly. The JSE opened the door to actively managed ETFs (AMETFs) in 2022, and the first listed in 2023.
By the end of September, 54 were trading, up from 37 at the start of the year, with a combined market value of R25.8 billion.
They raised R5 billion in new capital in the first nine months of 2026 alone. Institutions comfortable with listed instruments, advisors who value intraday liquidity and first-time investors who expect everything on their phone all want the same thing: a choice of approaches, in a format that fits how they already invest.
Judgement is what active brings to that choice. Ninety one has managed money for more than 35 years and lived through plenty of market cycles, from the dot-com bust to the global financial crisis to Covid. Those cycles rarely teach “avoid technology”.
They teach: know what you own, know what you paid, and be willing to say no if your judgement suggests the risks outweigh the potential returns.
Our Investment Institute expects the next decade to look different from the last, with lower returns and no guarantee that a rising tide lifts every share.
In that world, selectivity matters more than it has in years, and that is where active management adds value.
Active ETFs do not promise to dodge every sell-off. No fund can. They offer something more modest and more useful: a team of specialists making deliberate choices on your behalf, at a price you can see, traded when you want.
This week we listed two equity AMETFs on the JSE: the Ninety One Top Choice SA Equity AMETF (91SAEQ), a high-conviction portfolio of our 20 best ideas in SA equities, and the Ninety One Global Strategic Equity Feeder AMETF (91GEQ), which gives investors rand-based access to 50 to 70 of our best ideas in global companies.
These funds complement the two multi-asset income AMETFs we launched a year ago, so investors can now build across income and equity, locally and globally, in a listed format. We plan to bring three more AMETFs to market by the end of the first quarter of 2027, taking our range to seven.
Investors no longer have to choose between the convenience of an ETF and the judgement of an experienced team.
Index funds may well remain a cornerstone of many portfolios, but active ETFs now sit comfortably alongside them. The AI wobble was a reminder of why many investors will want both.
