VIDEO: ETF of the Week: Favorite ETF Picks of 2025

On this special episode of the “ETF of the Week” podcast, VettaFi’s Head of Research, Todd Rosenbluth, reviewed some of his favorite ETF of the Week picks from 2025 with Chuck Jaffe of Money Life. 

Chuck Jaffe: One fund on point for today. The expert to talk about it. Welcome to the ETF of the Week! 

Where we get the latest take from Todd Rosenbluth, the head of research at VettaFi. And if you go to VettaFi.com, you’re going to find all the tools you need to be a savvier, smarter ETF investor, and to get more details on the newsworthy, trending, and timely ETFs that we talk about here. And today with our wrap-up for 2025 — it is a special edition of the ETF of the Week because we’re not going to focus on one ETF like we do most of the time.

No, no, no. We’re going to look back at some of Todd’s favorite picks from this year, why they were his favorites, how they turned out, and more. But again, if you want to research those picks, go to VettaFi.com to get more information on all of them. 

Let’s dive in, because you had a lot of picks this year that, while the market was benign, certainly made it easier to look smart when the markets work in your favor. But there are a couple of things that were really interesting that really turned out. So, let’s talk about a couple of your favorite picks from this year.

Todd Rosenbluth: Yeah. What we tried to do — well, what we tried to do was, on a weekly basis, bring something perhaps that people aren’t as familiar with that’s caught our eye, either from an investment style standpoint or because it started to gain traction with investors. We want to dig into why that might be, and we’re taking a bit of a leap of faith that either that trend is going to continue, or that’s a trend that has not yet fully materialized but that hopefully will.

So, I have three different funds — maybe we’ll get deeper than that—but three different funds that caught my eye. The first one is from T. Rowe Price. It’s their International Equity ETF, TOUS. “TOUS.” We like to say the words of ETFs. This is, as one would expect from T. Rowe Price, an actively managed ETF. And as the name suggests, it’s international equity that invests outside the United States.

Last week we talked about how international equity stocks have outperformed U.S. stocks. Well, TOUS has even outperformed the index for international products. So it was up 33%. As we’re recording this — and in full disclosure, we’re recording this on December 22 — the fund was up 33%. That’s better than the 31%, give or take, that we saw for the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF, IEFA, and up more than double for the S&P 500. So, really happy that we introduced investors to this actively managed international equity ETF.

See More: VIDEO: ETF of the Week: TOUS

Chuck Jaffe: So again, TOUS. T. Rowe Price International Equity. But you said you had three. And I know that the others are very different.

Todd Rosenbluth: They are. So, maybe we’ll do that. That was perhaps the more exciting — investing internationally. I want to make sure that I keep you and the listeners—and those that are watching us, if that’s the case — awake when I say Vanguard and the Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF, VBIL. We talked about this fund, I believe, in March or April if I’m going from memory. 

The ETF had just launched. It launched in the first quarter of 2025. Last week I mentioned a record number — over a thousand ETFs that had launched, many from newer entrants or, you know, single-stock leveraged ETFs. You perhaps couldn’t get more boring than a 0-3 month Treasury ETF. 

Chuck, I’m going to make sure you’re awake. Let me pause for a second. I still gotcha?

Chuck Jaffe: Ha! Yes, you still have me. But my general take when we start to talk about funds this conservative and this boring is: ‘Yeah, that was boring.’ Yeah. Exactly. God, that was boring.

Todd Rosenbluth: Well, it wasn’t to investors. This ETF, despite launching in the first quarter, has gathered $4.5 billion. As you and I are talking this year, I believe it is the most popular of the newly launched ETFs. And we had crypto ETFs, we had single-stock leveraged ETFs. 

We had a whole bunch of actively managed ETFs from new entrants. Vanguard; low-cost and very conservative. Put your money to work in the right way for short-term treasury-oriented ETFs — that worked this year. It gathered a lot of money. Hopefully, people took advantage of this conversation that we had six or nine months ago. And if they haven’t, they should take a closer look at this ETF, because it’s doing really well in gathering assets.

See More: VIDEO: ETF of the Week: VBIL

Chuck Jaffe: So, again, that’s VBIL. We’ve got one more.

Todd Rosenbluth: Yeah, we do. So we talked a lot about growth strategies and Nasdaq-100-based ETFs being a poster-child way of getting exposure to large-cap growth strategies. 

One of the ETFs we talked about was from NEOS. NEOS offers the Nasdaq 100 High Income ETF; QQQI is the ticker. It gathered $6 billion this year. So, you get the benefit of Nasdaq-100 stocks — the Mag Seven — but you get the benefits also of an experienced team using options in an active manner to generate enhanced income.

So, we saw enhanced income, or options-based strategies be very popular this year from JPMorgan, but also from NEOS. $6 billion is impressive. And I don’t think we talked about it — I’m going from memory as to what we talked about last week in terms of the year of ETFs — but we had an acquisition of Goldman Sachs buying Innovator, which helped to legitimize that there was demand, industry-wide, for options-based strategies, and Innovator has had success with a number of these products; Goldman’s had some less success, but hopefully more to come. NEOS has had a tremendous year, and QQQI has been a great success story for them, so I’m glad we got a chance to introduce that and other ETFs as part of our ETF of the Week.

See More: VIDEO: ETF of the Week: QQQI

Chuck Jaffe: Yeah. And that is a fund concept that certainly has legs. We’re going to see more of it, whether we’re talking about more of those ETFs or other styles next year. Well, I can’t wait to find out. Todd, always a privilege having you on the show. It’s been great working with you. We got another year in the books, but 2026? Well, if 2025 was any indication, ’26 will be better than ever for ETFs.

Todd Rosenbluth: Well, Happy New Year to you and all the listeners. Thanks a lot for the time we share together!

Chuck Jaffe: The ETF of the Week is a joint production of VettaFi and Money Life with Chuck Jaffe. Yes, I’m Chuck Jaffe. You can check out my hour-long weekday podcast at MoneyLifeShow.com, or on your favorite podcast app. 

You can check out your favorite ETFs, or maybe your next favorite ETFs, or any of the ones we talk about here by going to VettaFi.com, where they have a full suite of tools that will help you become a better investor. They are on X @Vetta_Fi, and Todd Rosenbluth, their head of research, my guest every week; he is on X as well @ToddRosenbluth. 

The ETF of the Week will return to its regular Thursday schedule after the holidays. But we hope you have a wonderful, safe, and happy holiday and a great New Year! We look forward to seeing you on the other side of it. And until we see you, happy investing, everybody!

Note: This article was created in part through assistance from AI tools. The content has been thoroughly reviewed and edited by the author. 

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