NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- In a competitive jab at its cross-town rival, the New York Stock Exchange is extending its reach in the exchange-traded fund market.

The NYSE in April will begin trading 27 ETFs, the bread and butter of the American Stock Exchange, where the products make up 75 percent of daily trading volume.

"At the end of the day, more competition is good for investors," said Jim Pacetti of ExchangeTradedFunds.com. "It creates deeper markets and lower spreads."

The New York Stock Exchange entered the ETF arena last July when it began trading three popular ETFs -- Spiders (SPY: news, chart, profile), Q's (QQQ: news, chart, profile) and Diamonds (DIA: news, chart, profile), which track the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100 and the Dow, respectively.

The additions marked the first time in NYSE history that it allowed securities listed elsewhere to trade on its floor. The American Stock Exchange began trading the first ETFs, which allow investors to buy and sell indexes of stock like a single security, in 1993. NYSE's planned additions consist of 17 Merrill Lynch HOLDRS sector funds, nine S&P index sector funds and another ETF based on the S&P MidCap 400
index. More ETFs are on the way at the New York exchange, including a line of
NYSE-branded funds based on Dow Jones indexes. "By the end of this year, you should see our first ETF," said New York Stock Exchange spokeswoman Diana DeSocio. Assets in the ETF industry have soared recently, growing to $83 billion in 2001, up from $58 billion at the start of the year. Providers now offer more than 100 different funds covering domestic and international stock indexes.