America's hottest investment product is taking over - here are the top performing funds of 2016

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Gold

Reuters/Khaled Al Hariri

Women stand in front of a gold shop at al-Bzoria market in old Damascus.

There's no doubt about it: exchange-traded funds are hot.

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These funds, which simply track an index, have hoovered up assets at a rate over the past decade. US-listed ETFs saw $283 billion in net inflows during 2016, taking aggregate assets under management to $2.5 trillion, according to Citigroup.

The appeal is obvious. ETFs provide cheap and easy access to asset classes and sectors, without having to buy an individual stock or bond of a company.

The funds make up 15% of all investments right now, but have been tipped to make up to 60% of investments in the next 10 years.

There is now more than 1,900 different funds, focusing on just about anything and everything. And while some funds are huge, there are many, many more smaller funds focused on niche areas of investment.

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Citigroup analysts led by Scott Chronert put together a list of the best performing ETFs in 2016, with the list focused on funds with more than $100 million in assets. The list includes several funds focused on commodities. These funds benefitted from "the strong rebound in the global commodity complex," according to Chronert.

Here are the top performers of 2016: