Exchange traded funds (ETFs) surged in July turning this into a year of record growth, and the US accounted for nearly 90 percent of the growth, according to Stifel analyst Jeffrey Hopson. The increased interest in alternatives has been a boon for asset managers who already know their way around the ETF space, and this trend has been marked by even greater diversification at the sub-category level. After a strong start to the year, it looked like ETFs could drop at the beginning of the summer when investors were beginning to wonder how the end of QE would affect them….