Investing in ASX-listed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in 2026 could be one of the best things to do for our long-term wealth.
Owning ETFs makes it easy to gain the returns of the share market without having to do a significant amount of analysis.
Investors could easily choose the simplest ETFs, like Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF (ASX: VAS) and iShares S&P 500 ETF (ASX: IVV). Keeping it simple is a powerful strategy when it comes to investing.
But, I’m also attracted to ETF ideas that focus on just owning the most appealing businesses.
VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat ETF (ASX: MOAT)
This fund looks across the US share market for businesses that have wide economic moats. What’s a moat? It’s a competitive advantage (or advantages) that keep competitors at bay.
An economic moat can come in a variety of different forms, such as cost advantages, intellectual property (IP), network effects or switching costs.
For example, it would take a lot of disruption and staff training for a business to change what operations software or accounting software it uses, so they don’t change very often, giving a business like Xero Ltd (ASX: XRO) a high subscriber loyalty rate each year.
We don’t usually choose a computer or phone with different software when we buy a new one, so Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and Apple have strong economic moats.
It’d be very challenging to try to build a global payments network that offers as much global acceptance and usage as Visa and Mastercard – they are great examples of an economic moat.
Kmart and Bunnings are two Australian retailers, which are within the Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES) business, have excellent cost advantages with their huge scale compared to their Australian competitors.
This ASX ETF is focused on finding shares that have wide economic moats – this is Morningstar’s definition of businesses that have moats that are likely survive for 20 years or more.
After identifying which businesses could do well over a long-term time period, the MOAT ETF only invests when these quality businesses are trading at an attractive price. The MOAT ETF returned an average of 15.9% per year over the three years to November 2025.
In this fast-changing world, I think it could be more important than ever to focus on businesses with long-term advantages.
VanEck Morningstar International Wide Moat ETF (ASX: GOAT)
The GOAT ETF has a similar philosophy as the MOAT ETF – it’s looking for businesses with wide economic moats that are trading at attractive value.
The key difference is that the MOAT ETF only invests in US shares while the GOAT ETF targets businesses from across the world.
I like this distinction because the US share market may not always be the best place to invest, or be the best performer each year. The GOAT ETF has the flexibility to look for opportunities from across the world, rather than just one market.
This ASX ETF hasn’t performed quite as strongly, with an average return per year of 11.5% over the three years to November 2025. But, the investment having that flexibility could be useful over the long-term.
The US only makes up around 40% of the GOAT ETF’s portfolio, so investors are getting more geographic diversification.
I own units of both ASX ETFs and I’m planning to buy more because of their compelling strategies and neither are reliant on a few large US tech names for their returns from here onwards.
