Speaker 1: Welcome to trillions.
Speaker 2: I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Balchunis.
Speaker 1: Awards season Eric at ETF dot Com. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that this exists, but every year there are ETF industry awards.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: ETF dot Com was once known as Index Universe. They're
Speaker 3: kind of the ogs of being on top of the
Speaker 3: ETF industry in my opinion, and ETF dot Com has
Speaker 3: ETF Awards and yours truly is a judge.
Speaker 2: I think I've been a judge for two or three years.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of fun getting to vote that. The
Speaker 3: nominees are all logical to me. Every now and then
Speaker 3: one squeezes in that's like the indie feel good hit
Speaker 3: of the year. Then there's some of the more standard ones.
Speaker 3: It's really a lot like the Oscars, to be honest
Speaker 3: with you, and usually there's a there's a surprise or two,
Speaker 3: there's a Lifetime Achievement Award, Best New ETF, Best Ticker.
Speaker 2: It's really fun.
Speaker 3: You know, most people when they hear that, they're like,
Speaker 3: come on, there's an ETF Awards show, and of course
Speaker 3: there is, yeah, but this industry just it just feels
Speaker 3: right for this industry for me, so I get it
Speaker 3: and I think it's fun.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go through just a handful, a couple
Speaker 1: of handfuls of the recipients, the award winners and joining
Speaker 1: us from ETF dot com. We've got Kristin Myers who's
Speaker 1: the editor in chief, and Lucy Rooster, the financi reporter
Speaker 1: best time on Trillions. And the winner is Kristin Lucy
Speaker 1: Welcome to Trillions.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having us, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many years has this been happening?
Speaker 4: So the awards have been happening ten years running, but
Speaker 4: this is about the second or third awards, I would say,
Speaker 4: really since we kind of had this huge brand relaunch
Speaker 4: of ETF dot com.
Speaker 1: Okay, and there's there's a ton of categories, seventeen different categories.
Speaker 1: We're going to go over ten or so. I think
Speaker 1: how many finalists were there?
Speaker 4: Nominee nominees, So we got about seventeen hundred nominees if
Speaker 4: I remember it definitely was over fourteen hundred.
Speaker 1: Is it just people nominating themselves?
Speaker 4: Though you can nominate yourself, you can only nominate yourself once,
Speaker 4: So we do actually strip out the multiple nominations that
Speaker 4: do inevitably come up. And then we as the editorial team,
Speaker 4: whittled that down to eighty five finalists essentially, and then
Speaker 4: we kicked it over to Eric and six other judges
Speaker 4: who took that eighty five and brought that list down
Speaker 4: to seventeen.
Speaker 1: I had to have been pretty desperate for Eric to
Speaker 1: get invited back.
Speaker 2: I just voted for my friends. Yeah, I really try
Speaker 2: to be objective.
Speaker 1: And Bloomberg, by the way, was nominated for a couple
Speaker 1: of these categories. Well just one one. You abstained from
Speaker 1: that category. Yeah, and we got shut out. So giving away.
Speaker 3: Shutouts a little rough. I don't know how many of
Speaker 3: the six Voueah, we didn't get that. We didn't get
Speaker 3: that aword.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that was the disclaimer. Okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to start with best New Active ETF and we're going
Speaker 1: to go kind of like reverse to end with ETF
Speaker 1: of the Year. So best New Active ETF. I don't
Speaker 1: is that like the best Supporting actress or something?
Speaker 3: Maybe Eric, I'd say, so, Yeah, this is a this
Speaker 3: is a This is a big one because active is
Speaker 3: the big deal. The whole industry is just loving that
Speaker 3: active is getting popular. To me, this is one of
Speaker 3: the hotter categories, and who won.
Speaker 5: That, Lucy, Yeah, absolutely, the Best New Active ETF went
Speaker 5: to the AB Disruptors ETF ticker f w D And yeah,
Speaker 5: as we all know, AI was a huge story of
Speaker 5: the past year, so it made sense they won. But
Speaker 5: it was a competitive category. I mean, Panagram was nominated there,
Speaker 5: uh ETF ticker cls o Z the Fidelity Disruptive Technology
Speaker 5: ETF fd t X. Yeah, but the winner was the
Speaker 5: AB Disruptor.
Speaker 1: And you all don't know how close this was.
Speaker 4: We don't, and I should because people ask me this
Speaker 4: question and have asked this question quite a lot. We
Speaker 4: obviously know why we took the list down from more
Speaker 4: than one thousand down to eighty five, but when it
Speaker 4: comes to the final five noms in any of the categories,
Speaker 4: because we have about five in every single category, we
Speaker 4: actually don't know how the judges are actually voting. What
Speaker 4: makes one ETF or one fund really kind of clinch
Speaker 4: that top spot over another one. So Eric, I'm actually
Speaker 4: curious to know when you're looking at a category like
Speaker 4: best Active, Best New Active, what is something that kind
Speaker 4: of stands out to you above the others.
Speaker 3: I try to look for something that's either novel pushes
Speaker 3: the envelope in something like this because active is sort
Speaker 3: of a newer space, or if something punches a little
Speaker 3: above its weight, maybe it's more organic the flows rather
Speaker 3: than say just because they have a lot of distribution.
Speaker 3: So I tend to not vote for like the comic
Speaker 3: book movies. If you will, you know, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to vote for the Marvels or whatever for Best Picture.
Speaker 3: That's not my style. So I try to I do
Speaker 3: try to reward innovation and sort of indie breakthrough, and
Speaker 3: then every now and then something's just so powerful that
Speaker 3: you have to just be like, yeah, I can't deny that,
Speaker 3: even if it is the big guy.
Speaker 1: What did you think of this class of nominee in
Speaker 1: this one?
Speaker 3: I can't remember who I voted for, but I will
Speaker 3: say this ab disruptors and fidelity disruptives. I mean, Kathy
Speaker 3: Wood has to be loving this because these are really
Speaker 3: she really blazed that path, and she used to work
Speaker 3: at Alion Spurnstein. In fact, they wouldn't launch an ETF
Speaker 3: back when she was there, so she left to start
Speaker 3: her own shop. They finally launched one, I guess better
Speaker 3: late than ever, So I think she gets a win there,
Speaker 3: and then to me, the most interesting one probably is
Speaker 3: the clo clos are interesting. They have that bad reputation
Speaker 3: from the financial crisis, but they have a lot of
Speaker 3: really good attributes for a portfolio. They were one of
Speaker 3: the best fixed income performers last year.
Speaker 2: Lowvall.
Speaker 3: I'm just not sure how much advisors understand them, but
Speaker 3: that is a hot little area there, so I like
Speaker 3: that some like that gets in there. I like that
Speaker 3: it's not all of the big companies, which the other
Speaker 3: companies are real big. Panagram is like total indie.
Speaker 4: And Panagram actually pops up a couple of times, and
Speaker 4: the in the final NOAMS list. Actually, when it came
Speaker 4: to this year's awards, they did pretty well for an
Speaker 4: indie shop. They've made a really strong showing this year.
Speaker 2: Little Miss Sunshine hmm okay, well let's see if they
Speaker 2: uh Napoleon Diner few somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Best New US Equity ETF. Who is the winner in
Speaker 1: this category? Lucy?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I announced this category and the Fidelity Disruptive
Speaker 5: Technology ETF take our FDTX one and that was actually
Speaker 5: converted from a mutual fund in twenty twenty three, so
Speaker 5: it was technically a new ETF.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of an interesting little asterisk there. I
Speaker 1: guess like it technically is a new ETF. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we've been talking about conversions forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more like it was born on third base.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, And you know it was interesting. I was
Speaker 5: up there announcing it and and there were some booze
Speaker 5: in the audience when we announced the winner of this ETF,
Speaker 5: which was definitely interesting.
Speaker 2: So a couple theories there. I know John Davey was there.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was him because the story was on this
Speaker 3: list John's New Yorker, you know, I could see him
Speaker 3: sort of maybe getting there, and Rex and Roundhill DMO
Speaker 3: was in that category two. But there's a story kind
Speaker 3: of circulating that Fibility is charging a new like a
Speaker 3: surcharge for ETF isshuers, sort of like a fee to
Speaker 3: be on its platform, and it has kind of irritated
Speaker 3: some of.
Speaker 2: The smaller issuers.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty possible that that was them expressing their displeasure.
Speaker 3: But I will say drama, I think, yeah, reward show.
Speaker 2: They need that.
Speaker 3: You know, Ricky Gervais was so good for the Golden Globes.
Speaker 3: He made stuff really kind of and then Will Smith
Speaker 3: punch slapping Chris Rock. You need these moments, I think
Speaker 3: at an award show. So I'm sure fatility didn't like it,
Speaker 3: but I think it's good for you to that level.
Speaker 3: But sure, yeah, drama.
Speaker 4: This is the I don't know the only amount of
Speaker 4: kind of drama you could expect from ETF, dot commo wars. Well,
Speaker 4: like the Oscar.
Speaker 3: You're going to there was you have to lower your
Speaker 3: whole entire standards for the financial industry.
Speaker 2: It is pretty juicy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, next one, Best New smart Beta or
Speaker 1: factor e t F Kristin who won this one?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the winner of this category was Avantis all
Speaker 4: Equity Markets Value et F. That's ticker A v g V. Obviously,
Speaker 4: we were chatting about this a little bit earlier, and
Speaker 4: I mean, if we go back to just even that
Speaker 4: last category, there has been this push now into those
Speaker 4: active ETFs, right, and so this the best new smart
Speaker 4: Beta is essentially all about that kind of push because
Speaker 4: it's cheap way to get actively managed ETFs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Evantis Joel is sort of run by a
Speaker 3: guy who left DFA and it's kind of factory active obviously,
Speaker 3: but this is to me, Evantis is the tip of
Speaker 3: the spear of cheap Active. Active Now, like Avantis, most
Speaker 3: of their active ETFs are below twenty basis points. So
Speaker 3: if you're an advisor, you know they love cheap stuff, right,
Speaker 3: They're willing to buy Active, but they want it sort
Speaker 3: of priced to acknowledge that Beta is free. And so
Speaker 3: as Active goes through this painful process of like Beta
Speaker 3: adjusting their fees down lower, I think they're going to
Speaker 3: sell more and Avantas shows this, Capitol Group shows this,
Speaker 3: JP Morgan shows this. Avantis though, probably deserves even extra
Speaker 3: credit because the type of flows are taking in are
Speaker 3: enormous for a company that it doesn't have that brand
Speaker 3: name of those other guys, So I think deserved here.
Speaker 1: Was that like best animation maybe yeah, yeah, best the
Speaker 1: animated film? Okay, this one, I feel.
Speaker 2: Like like slightly above best editor.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you're going to react to this next
Speaker 1: next one? Uh, Christian, let's stay with you. Best New
Speaker 1: E S G E t F. Who won this?
Speaker 4: All right? Best New E S G E t F.
Speaker 4: That award winner went to the X trackers M S
Speaker 4: C I U S A Climate Action Equity E t F.
Speaker 4: That ticker is U S c a really interesting category
Speaker 4: for this one. And Lucy, I know you have a
Speaker 4: couple of thoughts. She was talking about E s G,
Speaker 4: E t FS recently. Everyone loves to hate E s G. Well,
Speaker 4: they love to hate ESG period, and they really love
Speaker 4: to hate ESG.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Eric kicked it off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was critical people are growing.
Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting because this one, you know, has accumulated
Speaker 5: one point five billion in assets over a time period,
Speaker 5: where over all the category has been seeing that outflows closures.
Speaker 1: Eric, I hate.
Speaker 3: Because this was long and I Shares launched one climate
Speaker 3: action for this European institution who is currently in two
Speaker 3: who had seated and I shares in a X trackers
Speaker 3: one that was called ESG for whatever reason, and they're
Speaker 3: both sensitive about this.
Speaker 2: They didn't like ESG.
Speaker 3: So these two firms came out with climate action and
Speaker 3: the firm simply moved all their money out of the
Speaker 3: ESG ones into the climate action one. So my interpretation
Speaker 3: was that ESG, the term, is getting a lot of
Speaker 3: baggage and people would rather be in something they didn't
Speaker 3: have that in the name to avoid all the controversy.
Speaker 3: And so in a way this should win because it
Speaker 3: is indicative of what we call the rebranding of ESG.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is what I love about the ETF
Speaker 4: dot Com awards. Just I mean to kind of take
Speaker 4: a broader look for a really quick second, because so
Speaker 4: many of these awards, even though it was in the
Speaker 4: year twenty twenty four, we were looking at the performance
Speaker 4: and everything like that for the year twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: So these awards are in a way a look back,
Speaker 4: but they're also a really nice way to also look forward. Right,
Speaker 4: you kind of can see that trends and where the
Speaker 4: market is going and how investors are thinking with these awards.
Speaker 4: But to Eric's point about how ESG kind of is
Speaker 4: almost like a scarlet letter for a lot of folks,
Speaker 4: and so there's but they are. It is ESG, though,
Speaker 4: I mean by its definition, if you think about what
Speaker 4: ESG really stands for, I mean that is essentially what
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 5: Interesting if you look at these nominees, I mean barely
Speaker 5: they don't even have ESG in the name of the funds,
Speaker 5: And I think it goes to what you're saying is,
Speaker 5: you know, I think a lot of firms are kind
Speaker 5: of putting the ESG label out's pasture because they're aware
Speaker 5: of the baggage that's coming along with it, but you know,
Speaker 5: it's how much are the actual strategies going to transform
Speaker 5: orre They kind of just dropping the label.
Speaker 3: It is interesting that none of the nominees in the
Speaker 3: SG had ESG in the name. Yeah, none of them
Speaker 3: and yourself, I may put that in a note That
Speaker 3: is really interesting and kind of proves our take, which
Speaker 3: was we thought and ESG is going to live on.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be one two percent of assets.
Speaker 3: They're going to try all these different kinds of names.
Speaker 3: Smart Beta went through this when smart Beta was popular.
Speaker 3: Everybody hated the name smart. They're like, it's not always smart,
Speaker 3: and it was a whole thing, and then it kind
Speaker 3: of found it's like niche, and people moved on to
Speaker 3: the next hot thing. ESG, I think, is going into
Speaker 3: that space of just okay, it exists, we don't need
Speaker 3: to debate it much anymore. The one that didn't win
Speaker 3: this is the carbon neutral power futures. That's kind of
Speaker 3: an interesting one. It's like electricity futures droll, not exactly ESG,
Speaker 3: more of a play on the.
Speaker 2: Actual electricity market. Another I think I might have voted
Speaker 2: for that one and vets as well, and vets another one.
Speaker 1: Heat TOUCHSDOWNE Climate TRANSITIONINGTF. I'm gonna use that as a
Speaker 1: way to transition us into the new ETF Ticker of
Speaker 1: the year. Heat shows up not only in Best New ESG,
Speaker 1: it also was nominated for Best ETF Ticker of the Year. Kristen,
Speaker 1: did it win?
Speaker 4: No? Oh, it did not win. That one went to
Speaker 4: the theme cybersecurity ETF ticker spam spam. Oh, I know.
Speaker 1: So good.
Speaker 2: That is good.
Speaker 3: We just had one of the nominees on the music
Speaker 3: Guy Q a couple of weeks ago. Bucks is on there.
Speaker 3: That's a bond ETF spam for cybersecurity. That that one, obviously,
Speaker 3: And it's interesting, Joel, I've always told you my favorite
Speaker 3: ticker is hack, which is a cybersecurity ETF cybersecurity made perfect.
Speaker 3: It's custom made for cool tickers. I still like Hack
Speaker 3: better than spam by a little, but spam's good.
Speaker 1: I will say that my head, my head went to spam,
Speaker 1: not the type in your inbox, but spam in the can.
Speaker 4: I also, it's funny you say that. I also thought
Speaker 4: of that, and I've never eaten spam, so I don't
Speaker 4: know why. That's where my mind.
Speaker 3: Does it repel you at all? Because spam isn't exactly
Speaker 3: like something you want.
Speaker 1: To eat, you know, the thing you want to click on.
Speaker 4: I heard it's delicious though a lot of has a following.
Speaker 4: So I have a question if you guys had to
Speaker 4: make a ticker name, Oh what would the ticker?
Speaker 1: We asked the questions on the show.
Speaker 3: Well, I know yours easy? His ideas have everything in
Speaker 3: one shot?
Speaker 2: Call it easy? What does it hold everything?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I like that, Yeah, it may I have its downsides.
Speaker 3: Well, the problem is advisors don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: They want to hold multiple things that looks like they're
Speaker 3: doing something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Easy, But I just think it's too good to
Speaker 1: just just make it easy for folks. I have kind
Speaker 1: of a new addendum after like what seven years of
Speaker 1: the the podcast, and this is very New York centric
Speaker 1: where in the I think the phone book inspired a
Speaker 1: certain type of business name, which was like a B
Speaker 1: C and then like mechanic right, Like.
Speaker 4: You know, it's really sad. This is going over Lucy's
Speaker 4: head because she's so young.
Speaker 2: She do you even know what a phone book is?
Speaker 2: You ever handled one?
Speaker 5: I'm aware of the concept, but I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't personally why would you do?
Speaker 5: Yeah wait, why would you that instead of just using
Speaker 5: your iPhone? I don't understand the concept, but.
Speaker 4: Aware of the concepts, I feel terrible.
Speaker 1: So so the only thing better than ABC.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been in a picture and gone through
Speaker 2: a phone book?
Speaker 1: What's a what's a phone phone?
Speaker 2: You know, the payphones phone books.
Speaker 4: Sitting there and they were chained. You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 4: They were chained to New York, chained inside.
Speaker 5: I mean those things people take pictures.
Speaker 2: Now, I just feel you ever made a collect call
Speaker 2: from a phone booth? That's a whole other level.
Speaker 1: Of yeah, yeah, yeah, no comment, Uh, definitely definitely when
Speaker 1: yeah okay, So anyways, uh yeah, that does that answer
Speaker 1: your question?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It does kind of multiple different ways. Okay, So this
Speaker 1: is little grum roll. I feel like this is we're
Speaker 1: getting to the second half. We're going to do etf
Speaker 1: Issuer of the Year, which I feel like this is
Speaker 1: like a big one best Studio I guess something like that.
Speaker 1: That's not even an award.
Speaker 2: I'd put up maybe best screenplay or writer.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh Lucy the winner is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so for eat issue or the winner was Dimensional
Speaker 5: Fund Advisors, which you know, they're known for active management,
Speaker 5: which is, like we mentioned earlier, really been a huge
Speaker 5: theme of the past year, and you know they launched
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty, so they've really picked up steam. They
Speaker 5: have thirty eight funds and one hundred billion in assets,
Speaker 5: so you know, it was a competitive category. We saw
Speaker 5: on Vesco in there, van Neck, Franklin, Templeton, But yeah,
Speaker 5: Dimensional one, Kristin, were you surprised a little bit?
Speaker 4: So I actually really love this because it's a little
Speaker 4: bit like the Cinderella Story. I don't know if I
Speaker 4: would call dfa truly like you know, a sort of
Speaker 4: and when I say Cinderella story, I mean kind of
Speaker 4: like you know, March Madness type of Cinderella story. But
Speaker 4: I mean, really think about it. Again, they've only been
Speaker 4: working launching ETFs now for at the time three years, right,
Speaker 4: because this was again for categories that happened for twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three, and they're going up against Fidelity, They're going
Speaker 4: up against Invesco, They're going up against Vanac. These are
Speaker 4: obviously really huge institutions that have been doing this for
Speaker 4: such a long time. I love that kind of again,
Speaker 4: I don't know if I want to call them an underdog,
Speaker 4: but a little bit of an underdog really when you
Speaker 4: compare it to some of those bigger players.
Speaker 2: This was the biggest group in the world. I agree,
Speaker 2: a little underdogish.
Speaker 3: If if ARC kind of said that active can succeed,
Speaker 3: it's almost like DFA came and just like built a
Speaker 3: whole highway because a DFA has shown again that if
Speaker 3: you lower your fees enough, you can really sell almost anything.
Speaker 3: Because remember smart Beta was around for a while, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't until it got cheap that it started to
Speaker 3: see success. Same with the SG In fact, Vanguard their
Speaker 3: index funds charged sixty basis points when they first started.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until they crossed the twenty basis point line
Speaker 3: in like the late nineties two thousands that they took off.
Speaker 3: So the moral of the story is, whatever you have,
Speaker 3: if you can get that fee under twenty BIPs, you're
Speaker 3: going to start to move product. And DFA also has
Speaker 3: a really big brand name for advisors, so and DFA
Speaker 3: when they launched their ETFs, they almost unexclusivized because used
Speaker 3: to have to be like a member of the DFA network.
Speaker 3: But if the ETF anybody can buy it. So I
Speaker 3: agree with this winner. It feels right to me. But
Speaker 3: you're right, it's a tough category.
Speaker 1: That implies that there was a winner that you didn't
Speaker 1: agree with somewhere. Oh no comment, you.
Speaker 2: Just got im. It's going to be trying to be nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, Lucy, sticking with you. The best
Speaker 1: thematic ETF of the year.
Speaker 5: The spraut Uranium Minors ETF ticker you are and and yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean they're one of the only funds. Yeah, they're
Speaker 5: one of the only funds offering exposure to uranium. And
Speaker 5: you know, the performance was, you know, double the return
Speaker 5: of the S and P five.
Speaker 4: Uranium absolutely took off in twenty twenty three. I think
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 2: Oh did it?
Speaker 1: It feels like it's been taking off multiple times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys weren't there yet. Let me take you
Speaker 2: back to rape before COVID.
Speaker 3: This is January twenty twenty, right when I still thought
Speaker 3: it wasn't going to be a big deal.
Speaker 2: Remember that.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I'm on stage at ETF dot com conference. You
Speaker 3: guys weren't there yet, and the analysts have to present
Speaker 3: their best new ETF idea.
Speaker 2: I presented you R and M.
Speaker 3: It had just come off a huge bear market, and
Speaker 3: I called it green investing for realists, because if you
Speaker 3: want to get to net zero, you got to have
Speaker 3: nuclear I was like, this is also obvious Bill Gates
Speaker 3: to say in the same thing, I didn't win, But
Speaker 3: since then, my my ticker, you R and M crushed everybody.
Speaker 4: So this is your comebacks. Yeah, this is really you.
Speaker 4: You should have been on taking the tak the for this.
Speaker 2: I should have I should have been part of the
Speaker 2: team that went up.
Speaker 4: So does the microphone Does that mean you voted like
Speaker 4: Kanye Taylor sweat, Yeah, yeah, I deserve this.
Speaker 1: It feels like he's voting for this to keep his
Speaker 1: finger on the scale about how smart I was like
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it is a good story.
Speaker 3: The other thing I like about this, we just did
Speaker 3: a study of like, if you look at all the
Speaker 3: ETFs that have closed a lot of times, their performance
Speaker 3: gets better after they close than in their life. You
Speaker 3: know why, because they launched the peak of these trends.
Speaker 3: Your n M stuck out to me because it launched
Speaker 3: after like a ten year bear market, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I never saw that, and I'll like I kind of
Speaker 3: trust it. So you launch when it's bad and you
Speaker 3: just wait for the ball to get kicked to that
Speaker 3: part of the soccer field and then boom, you got
Speaker 3: this huge run up.
Speaker 2: And R in M I think also was novel in
Speaker 2: that department.
Speaker 4: I mean their performance. I'm looking right now their one
Speaker 4: year performance over seventy one percent. Yeah, seventy two percent.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got a fixed amount of this and to
Speaker 1: be AIQ is big because AIQ is doing real AI
Speaker 1: and tech ETF.
Speaker 2: That's the best selling AI ETF right now. That's the
Speaker 2: hottest topic. So R and M had tough competition in here.
Speaker 1: Okay, best new US Fixed income ETF, Christian, you want
Speaker 1: to take that one?
Speaker 4: All right, let's go down this list. Okay, so best
Speaker 4: new US fixed income ETF that went to the Vanguard
Speaker 4: Short Term Tax Exempt ETF VTEs is the ticker. This
Speaker 4: is a tough category. I think fixed income anything right now.
Speaker 1: Kind of the year of fixed income.
Speaker 4: Oh man, it's investors in fixed income have really been
Speaker 4: getting battered prost lately. I think it's.
Speaker 3: Also fixing fixed income is editing a ton.
Speaker 1: Of interest in this category. Yeah, so why this one?
Speaker 3: The competition wasn't that fierce. All these companies are interesting
Speaker 3: calamos bond blocks, but the ETFs picked I could see
Speaker 3: why Vanguard won. Plus, you know, Vanguard's like Daniel da Lewis.
Speaker 3: If he's nominated for like seven caps, he's got to
Speaker 3: win something. He's just too good, right, Vanguard always takes
Speaker 3: in the most flows. They should win something or it's
Speaker 3: a little weird, right, So I think you have to
Speaker 3: give Vanguard some award somewhere. And this thing I haven't looked,
Speaker 3: but whenever they launch an ETF, they only launched like
Speaker 3: one a year. Maybe it's gonna be like billions of dollars.
Speaker 2: So makes sense. Vanguard got a little bone here.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think we're gonna have a pause right
Speaker 1: before we do the big the big part.
Speaker 2: Was there musical entertainment at the show, like you know
Speaker 2: how they do with the oscars.
Speaker 4: I mean, other than me singing yeah, I did not say,
Speaker 4: I did not say.
Speaker 5: And impromptu performance by Kristen I did.
Speaker 4: Actually, you know, it's really interesting. I did actually have
Speaker 4: a bunch of issuers give me one line best freestyle rap.
Speaker 4: I know you're so you seem surprised. Yeah, and I
Speaker 4: got some really good ones.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, So wait they sent you a line of rap.
Speaker 4: No, I literally just doorstep they were on the spot.
Speaker 4: On the spot, I said, I want you to freestyle
Speaker 4: your best one line rap about finance or investing or
Speaker 4: about your ETF. And I have to tell you, well,
Speaker 4: I will tell you the best raps that we got
Speaker 4: came from an issuer that actually performed very well in
Speaker 4: this awards. I don't want to give away. I'll circle
Speaker 4: back to it later.
Speaker 2: But this is on stage or off stage.
Speaker 4: Off stage?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, that kind of stuff I think can help
Speaker 3: because there's certain times that's not appropriate. But if this
Speaker 3: seems to be like something where it's appropriate, you know,
Speaker 3: the Financial Follies, that's that thing.
Speaker 4: Nerd the nerd prompt financial.
Speaker 2: You could be like the new Financial Follies. You know.
Speaker 3: What you should consider doing is having some kind of
Speaker 3: a theatrical skit or even there's a lot of like
Speaker 3: Blackrock has a band, you could have the black Rock
Speaker 3: band play listen.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: The idea is we.
Speaker 4: Are we are way ahead of you, so I want
Speaker 4: to I just want to let you know that next
Speaker 4: year in twenty twenty five, like you heard it here. First,
Speaker 4: the ETF dot Com Awards are going to be crazy.
Speaker 5: Do you think they were crazy this year?
Speaker 4: Just wait, just wait, just wait till next.
Speaker 5: Year's wait another three hundred days or.
Speaker 2: Together in their seats.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just mark your calendars.
Speaker 2: Now you got some strategic moves like that game.
Speaker 1: Bringing it back to.
Speaker 5: The we didn't think there was enough open conflict at
Speaker 5: this one, so we're we're going to really try to
Speaker 5: play that out next year.
Speaker 2: Good okay.
Speaker 1: Bringing back to the twenty twenty four awards. Last three things.
Speaker 1: We're going to start with Lifetime Achievement Ward. Oh lucy
Speaker 1: who went that?
Speaker 5: Jan Vanak won? And yeah, I mean he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Bad for the other people who are nominated.
Speaker 5: I mean everyone who was nominated, I mean was this?
Speaker 5: Is it just mean that next years scratched?
Speaker 1: You just keep keep yourself, But.
Speaker 4: Think about it. This is one of those categories where
Speaker 4: you know, everyone says that it's just an honor just
Speaker 4: to be nominated, and they don't really mean it because
Speaker 4: they really just want to win. But I actually think
Speaker 4: when it comes to the Lifetime Achievement Award category, it
Speaker 4: really is an honor to be nominated for for your
Speaker 4: colleagues and your peers to say you have done such
Speaker 4: an incredible job and so much work in this space.
Speaker 1: It feels like the one award where maybe don't reveal
Speaker 1: who the nominees are, just acknowledge you the.
Speaker 4: Winner is No I have to I think you're happy
Speaker 4: to be nominated.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Do you know that I was nominated for this twice?
Speaker 2: How did you feel?
Speaker 1: I did not know that. I was not trying to
Speaker 1: like make you know, make you feel better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I can give you first person account of
Speaker 3: how it feels. I was honestly just honored to be there.
Speaker 3: I felt too young. I was like, I'm not done yet.
Speaker 3: That said, I was like, that's kind of cool because
Speaker 3: for my age, I'm like, I'll take it. But the
Speaker 3: two people, I think Reggie Brown won instead of me
Speaker 3: one year and Matt Hogan won the other year.
Speaker 2: It was when their name was called I felt a little.
Speaker 3: Rejected, but just for a second, it wasn't bad. But
Speaker 3: here we've got Andrew Schlossberg, President of Invesco, Bob Pizzani,
Speaker 3: who does the CNBC ETF show, Hunter Horseley bit Y CEO,
Speaker 3: Joanna Gallegos from Bond Blocks, who has had a great career.
Speaker 3: She's been really around for a while. Rory Tobin of
Speaker 3: Global head of Spider, So, Jan Vanek is such a
Speaker 3: great guy. You know, it's a tough category, but somebody
Speaker 3: has to win. And how is his speech?
Speaker 4: So it was actually really good. He gave us his
Speaker 4: speech virtually and one it was kind of just you know,
Speaker 4: obviously thanking the entire crowd for for nominating him and
Speaker 4: for his win, but also in a in a kind
Speaker 4: of a way, a call to action for investors and
Speaker 4: for also you know, the issuers in the space to
Speaker 4: really again to continue to innovate, to continue to provide
Speaker 4: really you know, value for their clients and for investors.
Speaker 4: But then he also mentioned a sort of like call
Speaker 4: to philanthropy as well, that everyone in the room should
Speaker 4: really be thinking about the world around them, the investors
Speaker 4: that they're really working for, and trying to essentially deliver
Speaker 4: the most for them.
Speaker 1: Okay, last two, we're going to do best drum roll.
Speaker 2: Ye wants to make the drum roll.
Speaker 1: Best New Think, best New etf Lucy, do you want
Speaker 1: to do? The owners?
Speaker 5: And the winner it's a.
Speaker 1: Little slow, was you need? Yeah, there you go?
Speaker 5: And the winner was the Round Hill Magnificent seven ETF
Speaker 5: ticker m.
Speaker 2: A gs what shocker.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, kind of a no brainer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that makes it brainer. I think that's
Speaker 2: a shocker, really round.
Speaker 4: Hill, Yeah, I mean, I mean they're I mean they're
Speaker 4: the first, the first, yeah, best, Yeah, the first you
Speaker 4: get to track the mag seven stocks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they kind of coin they kinda off the Magnificent seven.
Speaker 3: Here's why the cues and some of these big ETFs
Speaker 3: they're kind of Magnificent seven. Anyway, Like this basically took
Speaker 3: something that you're already loaded up on and said, let's
Speaker 3: just do that. And it's to me, it's proof you
Speaker 3: can really try anything, because it's not that it's just
Speaker 3: a slight step away from the cues, which I think
Speaker 3: are like forty percent Magnificent seven stocks.
Speaker 2: I mean, anyway, God bless.
Speaker 4: But Fang was yesterday and Magsie true today.
Speaker 3: It's a sign of the times for sure. They also
Speaker 3: did chat, which is a ai E t F. They
Speaker 3: were nominated for two.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: Has it ever happened to the Oscars where someone's nominated
Speaker 3: for two at the same time.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, will say pretty bad ass.
Speaker 4: That's something that a couple of nominees appear more than once.
Speaker 4: You can appear in more than one category, and you
Speaker 4: are allowed to have as an issue more than one
Speaker 4: ETF in in everycent category.
Speaker 3: One of the nominees, Joel, we had a whole episode
Speaker 3: on T Jewel T Jewel, which is the Innovator Equity
Speaker 3: Define Protection ETF. That's the one that says, we promise
Speaker 3: you'll never lose money and you'll get sixteen percent every
Speaker 3: two years. Remember, Yeah, And it was like that caused
Speaker 3: all kinds of controversy on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Sounds sounds like too good to be trusto. When you
Speaker 1: hear it like that, it does you're to date.
Speaker 4: They're only they're up less than one and a half percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they have it. Okay. Now the big reveal
Speaker 1: ETF of the year, Kristen, did you know what advance?
Speaker 4: I knew some of them, okay, I knew some of them, Okay.
Speaker 4: And the winner is that was pacer US small cap
Speaker 4: cash Cows one hundred ETF ticker c a LF. They
Speaker 4: really should have nominated themselves, I think in the best
Speaker 4: ticker name. But yeah, CALF. So I should also mention
Speaker 4: pacer the Pacer folks also have the best freestyle wraps
Speaker 4: about about not only their their ETF, but also about
Speaker 4: their about their company.
Speaker 1: Eric, this.
Speaker 2: Is a worthy winner.
Speaker 4: I agree with you.
Speaker 2: Let me give you some facts on CALF. I think
Speaker 2: I voted for it. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: But Calf, first of all, it's not a fact. I
Speaker 1: don't think in fact that shared like sharing something worthwhile.
Speaker 2: Let me start again or keep it, I don't care.
Speaker 2: We're being human here, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Is this human enough? Okay? Okay?
Speaker 3: Calf is like the little brother of cows. Cows is
Speaker 3: this cash flow ETF? To me, this is the arc
Speaker 3: of the fed raising rates cycle. So when fed raised rates,
Speaker 3: arc kind of went in the gutter and cows became
Speaker 3: the new darling indie kind of issuer that came out
Speaker 3: of nowhere, took in money hand over fist. So they're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, we've got cows. Let's do this for
Speaker 3: small caps. We'll launch Calf, and Calf just took off.
Speaker 3: Calf is taken in money like I think it took
Speaker 3: in money for one hundred days straight. Once, It's taken
Speaker 3: in money for forty months straight. And it's all organic
Speaker 3: and all it does is look for free cash flow
Speaker 3: of companies, which is a metric that everyone's gone gaga
Speaker 3: small small caps. The big one does large caps. But
Speaker 3: listen to this stat calf is small caps only but
Speaker 3: outperformed the S and P. Well, that's crazy because it's.
Speaker 2: It's with this.
Speaker 3: It's good within small caps. Small caps everybody knows has
Speaker 3: trailed the S and P by a lot, but it
Speaker 3: picked the right ones that it actually beat the S
Speaker 3: and P.
Speaker 2: This is all.
Speaker 3: This is really hard to do for an issue that
Speaker 3: isn't like a gargantuan size.
Speaker 4: So that's why I love this winner. I will one
Speaker 4: because I just love the small cap story in general.
Speaker 1: And they drop beats.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they drop mad sick beats, but I love
Speaker 4: the small cap story in general. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty three, with the market performance obviously kind
Speaker 4: of like really like that bowl kind of getting out
Speaker 4: of the pen and starting to run, I think people
Speaker 4: really ignore it. I know, I know we're gonna I'm
Speaker 4: going to give you all cattle based references now for this,
Speaker 4: but honestly, I think people were kind of ignoring small caps.
Speaker 4: But I mean, what kind of is a drop in
Speaker 4: the ocean becomes a wave for small caps, and I
Speaker 4: just really think that CALF kind of rode that wave.
Speaker 4: And I think small caps are also something that in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four a lot of investors are going to
Speaker 4: really be looking into. And so what excites me about
Speaker 4: CALF and just in general with a lot of the
Speaker 4: winners that we're seeing, I'm curious to know which of
Speaker 4: them are not I don't want to say flashes in
Speaker 4: the pan, but really captured a moment in time in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three, but don't do well in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four considering the changing market environment that we have right now,
Speaker 4: and for me, when I look at CALF, I'm really
Speaker 4: curious to see how they perform in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: since so many investors are starting to say, hey, maybe
Speaker 4: we should actually take a look at small caps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: The other one's mostly large cap jep Q, qqq m RSP,
Speaker 3: and BITQ would be bitcoin industry minors. That was a
Speaker 3: little bit of a test because as these nominees came out.
Speaker 2: Bitcoin had exploded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it didn't make its way in here because
Speaker 3: it's all twenty twenty four. So I was curious if
Speaker 3: if crypto would actually win this category just because bitcoin
Speaker 3: was hot. But it's probably best that didn't. I think
Speaker 3: next year you could see more of the bitcoin stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, next year we'll have to do like a crypto
Speaker 5: category probably, Yeah, I think we will.
Speaker 2: I think you just have to make a new one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And I think it was cool too, because, I mean,
Speaker 5: as we mentioned Ai and mag seven was such sort
Speaker 5: of people think of the story of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5: So to have this ETF when and really focus on
Speaker 5: you know, small cap and just have such a unique
Speaker 5: and effective strategy, I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 1: All right. It's a question we often ask on the
Speaker 1: show at the end, Lucy Kristin, what's your favorite ETF ticker? Lucy,
Speaker 1: you can go first.
Speaker 5: My favorite ETF ticker? Hmm, I think you got pure
Speaker 5: you know, fun. I do think I think hack is fun.
Speaker 5: I also like I like some of those spot bitcoin tickers.
Speaker 5: I think the van nek h O d L.
Speaker 4: Is kind of fun.
Speaker 5: I like the nods to the culture.
Speaker 4: Take them, Kristin, Oh, mine sounds so boring. Now, Jets.
Speaker 1: It's fine favorite, It's well, I well, what I am
Speaker 1: general Jets fan.
Speaker 4: I like the football team. No, Okay, I'm a giant.
Speaker 4: I'm a giant school. I do have friends that play
Speaker 4: on the Jets, so I kind of am like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I support whenever I see them playing, But I like Jets.
Speaker 4: I love the travel industry. Yeah, I love the travel
Speaker 4: industry in general. I love in the airlines, the airliners,
Speaker 4: and it's just such an easy ticker name to remember
Speaker 4: and Jets love that.
Speaker 2: I think Jets one two or three years ago. It
Speaker 2: had to it had a great year around COVID.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, Lucy Kristin, thanks so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on Trillion's.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having.
Speaker 6: Us, Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You
Speaker 6: can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 6: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you'd like to listen.
Speaker 6: We'd love to hear from you. We're on Twitter. I'm
Speaker 6: at Joel Webber Show. He's at Eric Balchunas. This episode
Speaker 6: of Trillions was produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Bye