Speaker 1: Trains. I'm Howeer and I'm Eric belx Junas Eric. I
Speaker 1: live a desk life, but every once in a while
Speaker 1: you get to go on the road, not only from
Speaker 1: Philly to New York, which is like a weekly occurrence
Speaker 1: for you, but also to trade shows. Yeah, occasionally, I
Speaker 1: think I go to like three a year maybe, but
Speaker 1: this is the first of its kind, right, normally go
Speaker 1: to Inside et s maybe one other one of course
Speaker 1: our events, and then this one was new for me,
Speaker 1: and it was done by the rit Holtz Wealth Management,
Speaker 1: which is very on the show Josh Brown. You a
Speaker 1: lot of people on Bloomberg Opinion regular Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of people know them from Twitter. They all have a
Speaker 1: ton of followers. They are advisors, but they're not your
Speaker 1: grandfather's advisor. They're kind of very cool about it. Their
Speaker 1: fee base, they use low cost index funds, some active,
Speaker 1: They're on Twitter a lot, and I think they're leading
Speaker 1: what's a sort of move away from the traditional both
Speaker 1: style and strategy of a wealth manager or a broker.
Speaker 1: And so this conference really was to me the future
Speaker 1: of the wealth management industry in a nutshell. A lot
Speaker 1: of independent young advisors who were there really to learn
Speaker 1: how to get better. A lot of it was on technology,
Speaker 1: how advisors use technology, and E t F s frankly
Speaker 1: are a technology so a lot of them were E
Speaker 1: t F users. I talked to a bunch of people there.
Speaker 1: Um it was sold out seven people people first time. Yep,
Speaker 1: they're already planning a second one in California next year.
Speaker 1: Where was this one? This was in Scott's Dale, Arizona.
Speaker 1: And some of the sessions included like tech as a
Speaker 1: catalyst for growth, direct indexing, liquid alto e s G,
Speaker 1: bringing your brand on social Media. I was in a
Speaker 1: panel discussion called Battle the Pundits, similar to that one
Speaker 1: I do in Well. They didn't judge this one, but
Speaker 1: I felt I didn't you know that it was early
Speaker 1: in the morning. Was eight in the morning. So Todd rosenblooth,
Speaker 1: as you know he I think he was straw stirring
Speaker 1: the drink this time. He took a few friendly shots
Speaker 1: at Matt Dave myself and he got us going. But
Speaker 1: mostly I think we're pretty pretty calm up there. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody was really doing anything too crazy. We were just
Speaker 1: trying to give our take on the market and ets.
Speaker 1: This time on Trillians Eric's dispatch from Wealth Stack. Okay, Eric,
Speaker 1: so you went to Wealth Stack with a recorder. Who
Speaker 1: was the first big fish that you got? Josh Brown? Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I men him a bunch over the years.
Speaker 1: He's really great, really personable, and uh he's on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He's amazing on Twitter, and he his handle is at
Speaker 1: reform broker um and you can see his fingerprints all
Speaker 1: over this conference. So I thought let's start with him
Speaker 1: because he's really the mastermind, him and his company behind this,
Speaker 1: including inside ETF. So I gotta give hi a lot
Speaker 1: of credit. They are master conference organizers. So here's just
Speaker 1: talking about the Goalie event and wy Arizona. We have,
Speaker 1: I think some of the leading technology companies that serve advisors.
Speaker 1: Hold on, I'm just turning the game down a little there,
Speaker 1: go am I too loud for this? Yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: a little red. I didn't want to blow it out,
Speaker 1: so you can see it just come down an Alright.
Speaker 1: We have most of the practitioners who are forward thinking
Speaker 1: and progressive advisors, and then we have most of the
Speaker 1: financial technology providers that are serving this audience. So it's
Speaker 1: very engaged audience, young advisors, a lot of energy, and
Speaker 1: I think the networking is really what brings the whole
Speaker 1: thing together. So why Scottsdale in September. It's a hundred degrees, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the logic there? We're not very bright eric um,
Speaker 1: So Scottsdale in September. You know what, it's a beautiful hotel,
Speaker 1: it's a great venue. We really don't want people milling
Speaker 1: around outdoors. There was a hike this morning led by
Speaker 1: Dany Egan from Betterment took a whole group of advisors
Speaker 1: up into Camelback Mountain. Two dead and of course we
Speaker 1: pray for their families. Did people really die? No? Okay, good.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some came close to it, but it's it
Speaker 1: was again a hundred degree hike. I saw some photos
Speaker 1: from there. It was kind of cool. A lot of
Speaker 1: people took early morning hikes up to the mountain. The
Speaker 1: idea of having it more, yeah, the idea of having
Speaker 1: an events somewhere where most people did not want to
Speaker 1: be outside, I think was sort of the rationale they
Speaker 1: were giving. And by the way, you know that, um,
Speaker 1: that one was a little loud. There's a gain on
Speaker 1: the mic, and so excuse the little hiccups, and I
Speaker 1: I kind of like get better as we go. You'll
Speaker 1: see the This is why we typically have our colleagues
Speaker 1: do the field reports. That's right, Um, okay, So next
Speaker 1: one is just I thought it was cool because it
Speaker 1: was very casual. I did not bring slacks. I wore
Speaker 1: jeans the whole time, and that was completely the right move.
Speaker 1: Nobody there had a tie on, and may many people
Speaker 1: were even more dressed down. I mean I thought so.
Speaker 1: Some some people were in T shirts. I dig it.
Speaker 1: I personally think this is where things are going. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Here's josh On on the casual attire. I
Speaker 1: think there's the sense that a previous generation of advisors
Speaker 1: they were extraordinarily image conscious and they were always worried
Speaker 1: about saying the wrong thing and coming off too casually,
Speaker 1: and that seems to have gone away. And I think
Speaker 1: this generation of advisors it's more about the substance and
Speaker 1: the ideas and less about who's wearing a suit. You
Speaker 1: know who like we you know, none of us are
Speaker 1: trying to look and act like our fathers. We're trying
Speaker 1: to be our own people, and I think we want
Speaker 1: our clients to understand that we're real and we're authentic.
Speaker 1: Um and We're not putting on a show for them,
Speaker 1: We're we're being ourselves, and I think that resonates. I
Speaker 1: think it works really well in this era. So having
Speaker 1: the conference that was slightly more laid back and fun
Speaker 1: and youthful and energetic, it just made perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1: How many flip flops? Well, on Sunday I saw a
Speaker 1: lot that was the sort of half conference half like
Speaker 1: hanging up by the pool day but Monday not not really. Um,
Speaker 1: some some people in sneakers, but mostly people had shoes.
Speaker 1: Do you feel about it if somebody's in flip flops
Speaker 1: managing your money? That one step too far on a
Speaker 1: Monday at the conference? Probably I think that's a little
Speaker 1: a little bit too far. But the common dress was
Speaker 1: like maybe a shirt jacket, jeans. Uh. Some people just
Speaker 1: had a short on like a um dress shirt on. Um.
Speaker 1: There was you know, a couple of people who were
Speaker 1: a little more dressed up than that, But like I said,
Speaker 1: it was very casual, more casual than inside ets, which
Speaker 1: is pretty casual as it is. How do you feel
Speaker 1: about it when people at Bloomberg wear shorts to work
Speaker 1: like the R and D guys. Just in general, I
Speaker 1: get jealous because they're so in demand they can just
Speaker 1: come to work in shorts and it's fine. I saw
Speaker 1: one guy once and I was just like coders, No, No,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think that's appropriate. It might be
Speaker 1: a summer Friday, but like, dude, you're at work. No,
Speaker 1: there should be some level decorum, and there was. People
Speaker 1: look kind of cool. I gotta say so again, this
Speaker 1: is all part of a package that an advisor. Advisors
Speaker 1: interact with the clients, and so I think it says
Speaker 1: a lot about what the industry is going. Totally. Who
Speaker 1: else did you see? So? Nate Dacy, who is the
Speaker 1: host of another E t F podcast called et F Prime,
Speaker 1: also a friend because I was on the one last week,
Speaker 1: so um, and Nate's had me on a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: His podcast is really good. They do it out of
Speaker 1: Kansas City and it's real, um, real easy to understand.
Speaker 1: They really break it down. I love it. It's called
Speaker 1: et F Prime. Anyway, he was there and he talked
Speaker 1: about tech. Tech was a big thing here because if
Speaker 1: you are a client out there with a wealth manager,
Speaker 1: your expectations for how to interface with them are changing.
Speaker 1: And he addresses that if you think about how clients
Speaker 1: or how everyday people interact with technology. Is so Amazon, Uber, Netflix,
Speaker 1: that's their expectation when it comes to financial advice as well.
Speaker 1: Those companies, for better or worse, And I would say
Speaker 1: for better, have set client expectations around what technology and
Speaker 1: what what that should look like for them. So I
Speaker 1: think as an advisor we have to be thinking about that.
Speaker 1: You know, this one resonates with me a little bit
Speaker 1: because if you dabble with any sort of robo platform,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty amazing how good it is. And then
Speaker 1: you go to like a bank and you know, check
Speaker 1: your bank balance and it's like, man, I can barely
Speaker 1: even transfer money around here. It's amazing how how good
Speaker 1: it's gotten um in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1: And and and he's right, you think about like a a UI,
Speaker 1: like a Netflix, and it's got to be like what
Speaker 1: is driving financial services now? Yeah, there was a couple
Speaker 1: presenters who talked a lot about this, so I think
Speaker 1: that was a big part of it. There's a guy,
Speaker 1: Eric Clark from Oriyan who provides a lot of this
Speaker 1: back office technology. What he said was interesting and I
Speaker 1: tweet this out of a lot of activity. Some people agreed.
Speaker 1: Some people didn't, which is that the advisor value proposition
Speaker 1: used to be investments. You know, I can get to
Speaker 1: the mutual funds, I can get you this now, or
Speaker 1: the stocks now. It's planning, right, because investments are cheap,
Speaker 1: and he thinks it's going to migrate to the client
Speaker 1: experience in the future, as even planning gets priced down
Speaker 1: by the robot. So client experience was a big one again.
Speaker 1: And this is where I think Ridholtz has a lot
Speaker 1: going for it because you know them, they're writing a
Speaker 1: lot there. They're adding value in all these different ways
Speaker 1: because again, every time something is value, it tends to
Speaker 1: get priced down and commoditized. So he's trying to stay
Speaker 1: ahead of that process. Okay, so we've we've talked to
Speaker 1: one of the guys who helps organize it. We've talked
Speaker 1: to you know, a peer of yours with a rival podcast.
Speaker 1: Who else we got, uh Nicole Boyson, who is a
Speaker 1: finance professor of Northeastern University. Do you know her before? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I met her um on Twitter, but then in person
Speaker 1: I met her at the Democratized quant Conference which is
Speaker 1: down at Villanova every year. Anyway, she's really smart, Um,
Speaker 1: she was down there because of course she teaches, but
Speaker 1: she also does a lot of work with writing papers
Speaker 1: about brokers and advisors, and some are both, Like you know,
Speaker 1: a Goldman could be both a broker and an advisor,
Speaker 1: but the payment systems of these how you get paid
Speaker 1: is different, and that incentive has really completely changed the
Speaker 1: whole apparatus. As on they moved from broker to a
Speaker 1: fee based advisor, and this is that move is why
Speaker 1: Passive is so big. So I asked her to just
Speaker 1: explain that move. And most people at this conference probably,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't give a percentage, but a high
Speaker 1: percentage are fee based advisors not brokers. I love that
Speaker 1: an academic is actually studying that. So I mean, in
Speaker 1: the old days, you know, you're a broker and you
Speaker 1: get paid by the mutual fund. And then that started
Speaker 1: to shift in more and more advisors became fee based advisors,
Speaker 1: and then within that space, more and more of the
Speaker 1: fee based advisor said, you know what, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: out on my own. I don't want to be affiliated
Speaker 1: with a broker. I'm gonna start my own shop really
Speaker 1: focus on holistic financial planning, getting away from the transaction
Speaker 1: based way of being paid. And I think that this group,
Speaker 1: it's a young group, it's a vibrant group. People are
Speaker 1: really excited about serving their clients, and there's a huge
Speaker 1: push I think in two ways. I mean, one is technology,
Speaker 1: trying to really leverage technology so that you can focus
Speaker 1: on time with meeting with clients as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: running an Excel spreadshea and trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: their assets look like. And then I think the other
Speaker 1: piece is really really serving clients in ways that probably
Speaker 1: we're more lip service before. So really integrating estate planning,
Speaker 1: really integrating kind of college planning and big picture planning
Speaker 1: and looking at a client's um you know where they're going,
Speaker 1: as opposed to just here's your canned allocations see you
Speaker 1: in a year. She really, I think nail the whole
Speaker 1: concept here. It's just aggressively, relentlessly increasing your value proposition
Speaker 1: so you can stay a step ahead of all the
Speaker 1: stuff that's getting priced down. I mean that's why I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that like Barry and Co. Are actually
Speaker 1: the ones doing this right like there. I mean they
Speaker 1: epitomized this absolutely. I mean I have this idea for
Speaker 1: a book called The Big Long which is sort of
Speaker 1: tracking some of these fee based advisors who started this
Speaker 1: early on and who have been pretty optimistic about the market.
Speaker 1: I think the big short inspired a bunch of people
Speaker 1: to be very nerdy and call bubbles like It's like
Speaker 1: just the way Gordon Getko inspired a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who want to rule the world. I think the Big
Speaker 1: short inspired bubble callers, and these guys have remained optimistic.
Speaker 1: They fought back, and it's worked just staying long, staying optimistic,
Speaker 1: keeping people on a plan, investing not to gamble, but
Speaker 1: to benefit from the value created by people who go
Speaker 1: to work every day at these big companies. So this
Speaker 1: again small companies. You're right, So, uh, this is definitely
Speaker 1: again a whole mindset that's different in many different categories here.
Speaker 1: So I think that's why we're covering. I think that's
Speaker 1: why I went. And I think, uh, that incentive again,
Speaker 1: how you get paid, is such a big reason behind
Speaker 1: the rise of passive because once your your fee is
Speaker 1: a percentage of your client's assets and you know what's up,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, well, I'm not gonna pay a lot.
Speaker 1: I I just wanted a lot of broad exposure, and
Speaker 1: I'll pick and choose my battles of where I go active,
Speaker 1: but otherwise just give me cheap beta, all right, Who's next? Um?
Speaker 1: Next is Tyrone Ross um. Tyrone Ross is a startup advisor,
Speaker 1: a crypto advisor. He advises millennials. How much crypto was there,
Speaker 1: by the way, A little handful, not a ton. Surprised, No,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, crypto really goes with the youth,
Speaker 1: and so because it was younger, there was definitely a
Speaker 1: crypto element there. But again, most of these advisors are
Speaker 1: managing regular people's money and crypto isn't a huge part
Speaker 1: of any portfolio it anyway. He also says he's a
Speaker 1: voice for the voiceless on his Twitter and I met him.
Speaker 1: He is a great guy. We talked to him about
Speaker 1: doing good because I think the idea of these advisors really,
Speaker 1: I think have this. They really want to help, and
Speaker 1: I think not just helping people retire with assets and
Speaker 1: being able to like do the things they want, but
Speaker 1: also giving back. And Tyrone recently joined with Exponential ETFs
Speaker 1: to do investing classes and teaching in Detroit in inner
Speaker 1: cities to try to get more people into it because,
Speaker 1: as you know, the income inequality gap a big part
Speaker 1: of it is because half the country isn't in stocks,
Speaker 1: and that's driven a lot of the wedge between the
Speaker 1: really rich people and those who don't have it. So
Speaker 1: he talks about that when you break it down into
Speaker 1: those who are unbanked, underbanked, and and getting too the
Speaker 1: class structure of it you have, you get into people
Speaker 1: who have no access to the market at all. So
Speaker 1: those that own assets over the last ten years, like
Speaker 1: you said, so now creating awareness around what an e
Speaker 1: t F is, right, awareness around where when you go
Speaker 1: into your Sofi account or you have an Acorns account
Speaker 1: and you're you're actually putting money to work. This is
Speaker 1: what you're investing in those small steps basic education. I
Speaker 1: think now you start to get people exposed, right, you
Speaker 1: start to educate people, and you start to put them
Speaker 1: in a position where now they say, okay, this is
Speaker 1: a whole world. I knew nothing about what are the
Speaker 1: next steps. I lived it. He's like an activist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know it's really true. I'm e t s
Speaker 1: can be bought for you know, there's no minimum investment. Well,
Speaker 1: I was just just get your hooks on the market.
Speaker 1: Good things happen. Literally, we've had multiple people on already
Speaker 1: talk about technology and how transformative, how e t s
Speaker 1: are technology play and you think about how easy it
Speaker 1: is to like do something on your phone. All you
Speaker 1: need is the awareness. So if somebody like that it's
Speaker 1: going to a city like Detroit and trying to make
Speaker 1: a difference, it's really interesting. Another thing about Tyrone is
Speaker 1: I find him to be bleeding edge when it comes
Speaker 1: to fearlessness on social media. He'll he's an extract guy,
Speaker 1: and he will do He'll tape himself on his iPhone
Speaker 1: after working out, just giving his thoughts on random things.
Speaker 1: It takes a brave soul to do that. He talks
Speaker 1: about the authenticity that's needed and it is helpful and
Speaker 1: social media and social media was a big part of
Speaker 1: this because a lot of younger clients are going to
Speaker 1: look for you on social media not in traditional forms.
Speaker 1: You're a little bit like that, especially with the Eagles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I tweet my thoughts sometimes, specially at sports,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I'm just not they're whipping up my
Speaker 1: phone and like you know, at my house and just
Speaker 1: saying like a reaction on something. But I've seen like
Speaker 1: sports anilists to it, like Stephen A. Smith will do
Speaker 1: it sometimes and it just seems like that's where things
Speaker 1: are going. And people like that because it's like unpolished,
Speaker 1: fast take. Yeah, it's a difficult thing to do, right
Speaker 1: You You open yourself to a lot of ridicule on
Speaker 1: social media period when you post anything, let alone being vulnerable.
Speaker 1: But I think what I want people to do is
Speaker 1: understand that talking about the your weaknesses, right, things that
Speaker 1: you've gone through your experiences. Everyone has a story. Not
Speaker 1: just want people to tell their story because I think
Speaker 1: if we do that, they were not so divided, right
Speaker 1: and and and we can understand what it means to
Speaker 1: be a black man versus a white woman versus to
Speaker 1: be someone who comes from affluence but to someone who doesn't.
Speaker 1: There's a struggle in everybody's story. No one is exempt, right.
Speaker 1: We all live life, and life will test you in
Speaker 1: their certain trials. I've seen him tweet out stuff that gets,
Speaker 1: you know, exponential more likes then corporate handles that tweet
Speaker 1: out stuff that you can tell has been approved by
Speaker 1: thirteen lawyers, and he has a fiftieth of the followers
Speaker 1: as that other handle. So he's what he's doing works,
Speaker 1: and it again it's showing your weakness. Being honest, it's hard.
Speaker 1: We gotta hang with this guy. We should have mon
Speaker 1: for sure. Um down the road. Who's next next is
Speaker 1: Patrick O'Shaughnessy. He is an asset manager quant and he's
Speaker 1: also got a podcast, invest Like the Best, which is
Speaker 1: really great, a highly recommended. I was on it once.
Speaker 1: When I went on it, I got like three followers.
Speaker 1: Like this guy is has a lot of influence out there.
Speaker 1: He basically unveiled something called Canvas, which is what we
Speaker 1: talk about direct indexing. It's a tool where you just
Speaker 1: sort of flip a few knobs, put your interest in
Speaker 1: and the advisor is able to give a customized portfolio.
Speaker 1: Skip the E t F and just get what you want.
Speaker 1: You know, you want the SMP minus one or two stocks.
Speaker 1: We can do that. You want this and this and
Speaker 1: then the only. The cost will be based on how
Speaker 1: much active share you have, so they don't charge you
Speaker 1: for beta only active share beyond that. So it was
Speaker 1: cutting edge, very easy to follow, and I think this
Speaker 1: could resonate. You know, I've been skeptical and direct indexing,
Speaker 1: but this presentation I think made me move the needle
Speaker 1: for me a little bit so here he is talking
Speaker 1: about it. Canvas is an investing platform software that allows
Speaker 1: advisors to design deeply customized strategies for all of their clients.
Speaker 1: This is a big trend, this idea of customization. I
Speaker 1: think technology has only just caught up to the point
Speaker 1: that we can actually do this and implement it. So
Speaker 1: no matter the client's circumstances and preferences, the low basis
Speaker 1: stock they own, um, the things they care about, the
Speaker 1: stocks they don't like, the E s G. Considerations they
Speaker 1: want in the portfolio, all of these things can now
Speaker 1: be tailored sort of a fingerprint portfolio to each individual,
Speaker 1: so they can get something from the advisor they can
Speaker 1: get elsewhere that's better wrapped around their circumstances and preferences.
Speaker 1: That sounds great. Why have you been hard on this? Well,
Speaker 1: that brings us to our next interview. I went back
Speaker 1: to nature a CI who is an advisor in Missouri.
Speaker 1: I mean he's got clients. I asked them, here's why
Speaker 1: A three basis point e t f to gives you
Speaker 1: the whole market and like another one for fixed income,
Speaker 1: they take care of all bunch of stuff that you
Speaker 1: don't realize. I mean you outsource a ton of stuff
Speaker 1: for four basis points. That is a seriously good value proposition.
Speaker 1: So this is trying to replace your whole portfolio. It's
Speaker 1: not like saying, hey, give us like a little tiny
Speaker 1: piece like a like a like a fun would be
Speaker 1: like hey just put two percent in me. This is like, hey,
Speaker 1: use us instead of all your E t F. So
Speaker 1: again you're going, yeah, absolutely out. I will say I
Speaker 1: I like I said, I'm this was a great presentation.
Speaker 1: I think I heard talk to some people who said
Speaker 1: for certain clients this will be great, especially once the
Speaker 1: one the newest stuff, or might be very picky about
Speaker 1: what they like or E s G focused. But here's
Speaker 1: Nate talking about what why he is skeptical to use
Speaker 1: it for his clients at least right now. The value
Speaker 1: proposition of E T S is so compelling right now
Speaker 1: that I do think direct indexine is going to have
Speaker 1: a difficult time significantly penetrating that market. I think the
Speaker 1: best use case for direct indexine is E s G.
Speaker 1: And one of the comments was made on the panel
Speaker 1: that use ad on today the Battle of the E
Speaker 1: t F pundance, that direct indexinge will swamp the demand
Speaker 1: for E s g e t S. I agree with that. UM,
Speaker 1: outside of that particular use case, I just wonder direct
Speaker 1: indexing to me, you're adding active management into the process.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have tracking error even if it's minor, and
Speaker 1: so as an isser, do you want to bring that
Speaker 1: into the cold UM? I think that's a what are
Speaker 1: the costs going to be? I don't think we know
Speaker 1: exactly what the costs are gonna look like, So you
Speaker 1: have transaction costs inside of the direct in vaccine was
Speaker 1: gonna be an asset management fee I'm assuming layered on that.
Speaker 1: And so going back to how compelling a value proposition
Speaker 1: E t f s are right now, how how big
Speaker 1: of a tax advantage is direct indexing going to be
Speaker 1: to overcome the potential for tracking error the additional cost.
Speaker 1: I think you are adding complexity into the process because
Speaker 1: it's something else that has to be explained to the
Speaker 1: end client. These are all questions that I think need
Speaker 1: to be answered. And there are questions that I had, Well,
Speaker 1: there's the bearercase. Yeah, and I talked to UM the
Speaker 1: O'Shaughnessy folks uh before coming on. They said they had
Speaker 1: three hundred people sign up for demos on their website.
Speaker 1: So look, we'll see I think we should do a
Speaker 1: whole episode on direct indexing at some point. I think
Speaker 1: we even having Patrick on and just diving in would
Speaker 1: be a good idea. You can tell there's a lot
Speaker 1: of meat here. Totally, We're doing it. Okay. Next uh,
Speaker 1: Next up, we have around with your recorder looking for
Speaker 1: people to talk to. Would you would you fund? Next
Speaker 1: we have Ben Carlson also at Ridholtz. You know this
Speaker 1: last bury saying passive bubble, YadA YadA. Every quarter there's
Speaker 1: somebody who says passive bubble and then somebody ends up
Speaker 1: reading a rebuttal of why it's maybe not true. Ben
Speaker 1: was the guy this time. So I just asked Bend
Speaker 1: about you know a lot of these advisors are using
Speaker 1: passive and index funds and ETFs um. Do they ever
Speaker 1: get swayed by these you know, pretty famous hedge fund
Speaker 1: types calling and saying passive is has problems or it
Speaker 1: could cause a problem. And I just asked him about
Speaker 1: that because he wrote the last defense piece, which I
Speaker 1: highly recommend reading at at Wealth of common sense dot com.
Speaker 1: But here here he is talking about why he defends
Speaker 1: passive right and We get questions from clients on this
Speaker 1: stuff too, like they see this, it can't ignore it obviously.
Speaker 1: I mean, we got to look at it like any
Speaker 1: time there's going to be a crash, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a narrative attached to it, and so people want to
Speaker 1: get like a head of that crash and attach an
Speaker 1: are up to it now. But there's always been crashes
Speaker 1: before index one existed, So so we want to get
Speaker 1: ahead of those questions and put context around it and
Speaker 1: try to tell people like, listen, you're you're basically talking
Speaker 1: about the entire stock market here. The stock market has
Speaker 1: always been crazy. Index funds aren't gonna make that any
Speaker 1: crazier than it already was. Right basically saying, look, I
Speaker 1: mean you own an X funds, you own a bunch
Speaker 1: of stocks. If you own to active mutual fund, you
Speaker 1: almost the same stocks everybody's in these big caps. It's
Speaker 1: not like the index fund is sound crazy derivative. That's
Speaker 1: his point, and um, I'm with him. I think it's
Speaker 1: exactly right. Next next we have Kean I'm going to butcher.
Speaker 1: His last name Salada, and he is a E. T.
Speaker 1: Fisher or there a couple of et f fishers here.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't there be It's a room full of advisors
Speaker 1: dream Um. He was there and I talked to him
Speaker 1: about just being a small issue or they have a
Speaker 1: couple of niche products. Um they have maybe uh, I
Speaker 1: think it was a hundred and ninety million in assets.
Speaker 1: Just asked him about like trying to sell to these
Speaker 1: advisors who were tended Lean, black Rock and Vanguard, and
Speaker 1: he said he was getting some traction from the younger crowd.
Speaker 1: For us, it's all about differentiation. So with the limited
Speaker 1: people that we do have, I mean, we every one
Speaker 1: of our seven strategies that we have at this point,
Speaker 1: we're just we're trying to bring something unique to the
Speaker 1: market or put some unique spin on it because we
Speaker 1: feel like that's really the only way that you're going
Speaker 1: to get adoption outside of you know, a two or
Speaker 1: three basis point index fun um And and it seems
Speaker 1: to resonate with some of the younger and more up
Speaker 1: and coming advisors more so, I would say, um, got
Speaker 1: the older generation is not as into that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: but the younger guys, I think I have something to
Speaker 1: prove what their clients and more of their clients are
Speaker 1: also younger and wants something different. Wait, what is this
Speaker 1: guy's on? So key on is reality Shares Reality Shares.
Speaker 1: One of the tips you might know is that they
Speaker 1: have a blockchain ETF. They're one of those issuers, but
Speaker 1: they're one of the bigger ones. Is Divvy, which is
Speaker 1: the Reality Shares divs et F and it it tracks
Speaker 1: dividend swaps. It's a way to play a actual divoting
Speaker 1: growth exceeding expected divoting growth. So it's a really complicated product.
Speaker 1: But um, I think that's sort of what he's saying,
Speaker 1: is that you you know, you can't just put the
Speaker 1: S and P in and you know, maybe a different order.
Speaker 1: I think you know that's getting priced down severely. He's
Speaker 1: trying to innovate, UM and he's going out there and
Speaker 1: trying to find younger advisors. And it's interesting that he
Speaker 1: said that, I thought, because when I think of someone
Speaker 1: like that out there at a conference, first of all,
Speaker 1: you gotta hustle. So I commend him for doing that.
Speaker 1: I am so surprised that we're not more small issuers there,
Speaker 1: because these are younger, smaller advisors who might take a
Speaker 1: chance from a smaller issuer that said, Um, this is
Speaker 1: how you have to try to go forward, but it's
Speaker 1: very difficult for indiasures. So you're out there hustling, you
Speaker 1: with a microphone, hustling around. Who do you see that
Speaker 1: you hustled over to? Next? Next was the exact opposite
Speaker 1: a big issuer. Um I didn't see. There was one
Speaker 1: guy from Vanguard there who was on a panel. I
Speaker 1: didn't see any black Rock, but there will um. Sue
Speaker 1: Thompson from State Street Spiders was there and I basically
Speaker 1: talked to her about what we've talked about occasionally. We
Speaker 1: haven't an episode on it, but the fact that some
Speaker 1: et f issuers are now becoming advisors and compete with
Speaker 1: their clients, State Street has come out and said we
Speaker 1: will not never do this, and so I sort of
Speaker 1: asked Sue about whether that would or could give them
Speaker 1: an advantage or and or make makes it a little
Speaker 1: easier for her to walk around the place like this,
Speaker 1: knowing that she's just talking to clients and not competitors. Also,
Speaker 1: when you think about State Street Bank, our parents, they're
Speaker 1: known for being a custodian to all of these asset managers,
Speaker 1: and so our partnering with asset managers are our partnership
Speaker 1: is part of our DNA. Competing against our clients is not.
Speaker 1: And I think we're gonna more and more get to
Speaker 1: the place where advisors are going to be valuing that UM.
Speaker 1: I was just talking to an advisor the other day
Speaker 1: who had recently lost a very significant client to an
Speaker 1: e T F issuer that has a direct business and
Speaker 1: was not happy about it at all. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult if you're an advisor and you're charging
Speaker 1: a hunder basis points and you've got a large et
Speaker 1: F issue where that's charging thirty five basis points, you know,
Speaker 1: where's that gonna What is that going to do to
Speaker 1: your business? Long terms? Do you have to think about that?
Speaker 1: Knives out? Knives out? And the thirty five makes me
Speaker 1: think it's either Vangard or Swab. Those are the two
Speaker 1: big ones. And honestly, those are the e T s
Speaker 1: that a lot of r i as advisors love their
Speaker 1: cheap beta right and but now everybody has cheap beta.
Speaker 1: Spider's got a line of cheap Beta. Investco has a
Speaker 1: lot of cheap Beta. Goldman and JP Morgan are also
Speaker 1: launching their lines of cheap beta. All these products you
Speaker 1: can get basically everything from the seven BIPs. So there
Speaker 1: are now options and so stay Street sort of saying like,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you love Vanguard and Schwab, but
Speaker 1: we're actually not going to compete with you and make
Speaker 1: that difficult. I haven't seen it maybe hit the flows
Speaker 1: fully yet. I think Spider's cheap Beta line has taken
Speaker 1: in cash. Not sure if it's for that reason per
Speaker 1: se or just the fact that there's cheap offerings and
Speaker 1: they have a big salesforce. But this is an interesting
Speaker 1: concept because throughout this whole conference, as we talked about,
Speaker 1: the idea was always working on your value proposition, getting
Speaker 1: your game better, because there are these big firms that
Speaker 1: can scale and they can drive that price down because
Speaker 1: it's job and Vanguard charge thirty and that's the that's
Speaker 1: when you come in cheap, Like if you have like
Speaker 1: I believe it's ten million dollars, Vanguard will do it
Speaker 1: for like five to ten BIPs. I believe it speaks
Speaker 1: to like where the asset management industry can go there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's only so many places that you can go.
Speaker 1: I mean you might have the scale, but like where
Speaker 1: are you gonna get some money? This brings us to
Speaker 1: a bigger issue, which is that everything's consolidating. You know,
Speaker 1: advisors get a little more fee, right, one percent sounds
Speaker 1: pretty good to an asset manager. They can't sell anything
Speaker 1: over ten, so I get the move over there. Um.
Speaker 1: I think probably headed for a world where a lot
Speaker 1: of big asset managers are also advisors, and it's like
Speaker 1: the airlines, there's a couple of giant ones that do
Speaker 1: almost everything for you, and then on the fringes you'll
Speaker 1: have these sort of more smaller specific r A A
Speaker 1: s that have more local connections or something. Same with
Speaker 1: asset managers that do more boutique work, alternative work, stuff
Speaker 1: you can index. Um. So, I think part of what
Speaker 1: these guys are doing is trying to trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that they're providing that value add and that human
Speaker 1: touch and that experience so they can't be victims of
Speaker 1: the vanguard effect. Who is your next victim? Next victim
Speaker 1: and final victim? Was any massa are very own? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was on a couple of weeks ago talking multi factor.
Speaker 1: She was there. She moderated a panel about like macro,
Speaker 1: the macro scene. You know, what's the election gonna hold
Speaker 1: that kind of thing that was more panel you see
Speaker 1: in most places. I think that was a general one.
Speaker 1: But of course all these advisors are concerned about the
Speaker 1: election and this, and I asked her about that. But
Speaker 1: what really struck me on the interview was had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with work. Annie used the opportunity to go
Speaker 1: to Arizona, take a few days off and go on
Speaker 1: like a field trip around the Grand Canyon and hiking,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it sounded great. I was jealous,
Speaker 1: and so I asked her about her, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: her trip, her trip before the conference. So I took
Speaker 1: a couple of days and did an Annie goes West
Speaker 1: road trip around Arizona. So I went up to Sedona,
Speaker 1: I saw the Red Rocks, hiked around there. It's the
Speaker 1: hundredth anniversary of the Grand Canyon National Park being in
Speaker 1: Ation Park, so I went to celebrate the centennial. I
Speaker 1: hiked a couple of trails into the canyon, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just saw the sunrise, staying until sunset, I watched
Speaker 1: the stars come out like I'm never going home. Basically,
Speaker 1: they had nothing to do with work. Absolutely nothing. Now
Speaker 1: on the flip side was my experience. Even though I
Speaker 1: had fun at the conference, I got there and I
Speaker 1: on East Coast time, so I woke up at like
Speaker 1: four in the morning, and when I finally flew back,
Speaker 1: I couldn't go to sleep until one o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning because I had adapted to West coast. So I'm
Speaker 1: shot right now. But um, Annie, I think she did
Speaker 1: it right. Took a few days off. She looked fresh
Speaker 1: and relaxed, and I was a little more like um,
Speaker 1: a little more tired and exhausted. But I you know,
Speaker 1: the conference did give me a little bolt of adrenaline.
Speaker 1: I really ran on fumes for a while and UM,
Speaker 1: like I said, UM, I got a lot out of it.
Speaker 1: And what do you guys to say to Barry Ritholtz
Speaker 1: see you next year. I've probably seen him before that.
Speaker 1: I run into Barry in the pantry sometimes, so UM,
Speaker 1: I would just tell him that he did a great job.
Speaker 1: I think this is a good event. And I think
Speaker 1: it's not just the material. It's not just the advice world.
Speaker 1: It's it's the vibe. I feel like they're just tapping
Speaker 1: into the modern vibe of finance. It's not like it was.
Speaker 1: And these guys are really I think at the tip
Speaker 1: of that spear of this big, broader change from a
Speaker 1: more stereotypical Wall Street to a new, more relaxed, um
Speaker 1: collaborative world with jeans. By the way, what was the
Speaker 1: highlight of the of the whole conference? You mean, like
Speaker 1: the parties and stuff so um. Well, the first night
Speaker 1: they had a Sunday night football party outside. Now mind you,
Speaker 1: it's a hundred and ten degrees, so they had these
Speaker 1: fans blowing water. It was wild, like water fans, that's
Speaker 1: how hot it was. But everybody sat there and drank
Speaker 1: beers and watched the Patriots blow out the Steelers. Then
Speaker 1: I went out to dinner after that with a lot
Speaker 1: of the E. T. F nerds who I was on
Speaker 1: a panel with the next day, probably had a little
Speaker 1: too much to drink, although I was probably I was
Speaker 1: embedded a decent hour, but again I got jolted awake
Speaker 1: at four five am something like that. And then Tuesday
Speaker 1: night everybody went out because they got this DJ scribble
Speaker 1: who I'm not up on my DJ's but Josh Brown
Speaker 1: claims he's amazing, And there was a big party. I
Speaker 1: did not go to that. I was shot and I
Speaker 1: had to get up early the next day to go home.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a moment in time that you
Speaker 1: were up to h I mean the nineties, forget about it.
Speaker 1: I would have been right there. I would have closed
Speaker 1: that place out. I would still be up. So that
Speaker 1: you're okay, I gotta I gotta go. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Trillions until next time. You can find us on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and
Speaker 1: wherever else he likes to us, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. We're on Twitter, I'm at Joel Webber Show,
Speaker 1: He's at Eric Balcrino's. Trillions is produced by Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Bye