Bill Gross' New ETF Will Be Tough to Mimic

If the SEC OKs the practice, the Total Return ETF would invest in derivatives, Pimco said in an SEC filing.

Nevertheless, the Gross-managed ETF is likely to gather assets quickly upon its launch. The reason: Analyst Eric Jacobson of fund-tracking firm Morningstar says "manager Bill Gross and Pimco's team are among the best in the business."

At the Total Return Fund, "Gross couples Pimco's long-term macroeconomic outlook with its take on short-term cyclical factors to determine this fund's sector weightings and duration (a measure of interest-rate sensitivity)," Jacobson writes in a research note.

Rosenbluth said Pimco has a "grand brand" that will pique investor interest in an already hot investment tool. "Investors are flocking to existing ETFs and ETF providers are launching new ones. There are 1,000 ETF products that available now and over 100 have been launched this year so there continues to be demand from end users and new supply."

Over 70% of ETFs are equity funds, many tied to indices, while about 14% are tied to fixed-income indices, Rosenbluth said.

The biggest ETF is the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), with $98 billion in assets. Its performance tracks the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

There is more than $1 trillion in ETFs today, up about 30% in the past year. But only a $5 billion sliver of that is in actively managed ETFs, according to Morningstar.

The Pimco Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund will trade under the ticker symbol "TRXT." It is expected to launch within a few months. The fund will charge annual fees of 0.55%.

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