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By Max Chen and Tom Lydon As the exchange traded fund industry grows in size and accumulates over trillions of dollars in assets under management, some are concerned that the investment vehicle is beginning to sway markets or won’t hold up in times of severe stress, according to industry analyst ETF Trends . However, Joel Dickson, Head of Investment R&D at Vanguard Group, argued on the Financial Times that ETFs do not contribute to market volatility and will hold up in times of market stress, despite some concerns about the investment vehicle. First off, Dickson points out that the global ETF industry represents about $3 trillion in assets, compared to the $300 trillion in financial assets over all. Given the relatively small size compared to the rest of the financial market, Dickson argues that there would have to be something we aren’t seeing in ETFs for them to sway market volatility. ETFs, like stocks, trade on a stock exchange through a broker. This secondary market is responsible for most of the trading volume in ETFs. Dickson points out that in the U.S. daily data shows that the median ratio of ETF trading volume that took place on the secondary market was about 94% for equity and 83% for bonds. “The net result is that most ETF shares are traded between investors and do not result in any activity in the ETF portfolio,” Dickson said. “Based on this data it’s hard to argue that ETFs are a cause of market volatility. Niche products might have an impact in low-volume asset classes. But for the overall equity and bond markets, the answer has to be no.” Credit Suisses’s Victor Lin mirrored Dickson’s sentiments. In his research, Lin found that data shows ETF activity only drives a small percentage of volume for most stocks, reports Teresa Rivas for Barron’s . “Sampling data between January 2015 to January 2016, we found that increases in ETF flow driven trading (averaged over a month) for a stock did not consistently result in an increase in realized volatility for that stock (adjusted for market-wide changes in volatility) over a one-month timeframe,” Lin said in a note. With regard to ETFs struggling in times of market stress, which many pointed to during the events on August 24 last year, Dickson contended that the situation occurred due to structural problems of the exchanges rather than problems with the ETF wrapper. “Because ETFs are listed on an exchange, they are subject to the same demand/supply forces and circuit-breaker rules as ordinary equities,” Dickson said. “This is what happened on August 24: the spread between the bid and offer prices of listed stocks and ETFs widened and some were temporarily halted.” Since the structural problems were revealed in late August, many ETF providers have been in discussion with regulators and exchanges on ways to improve the market structure. Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.