Speaker 1: Welcome to Trillians. I'm Joel Webber America. I'll shootis I
Speaker 1: am so excited about this week's guest Eric. It's like
Speaker 1: the perfect guest for this moment. Yeah. This is a
Speaker 1: company that has been putting et s out for I
Speaker 1: believe about two years. They don't have a ton of them,
Speaker 1: but they're interesting for variety of reason. But they hit
Speaker 1: my radar specifically in the past two weeks because of
Speaker 1: this sort of what I'm calling the a m C eclipse. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is that movie chain company that a lot of
Speaker 1: the redditors have, you know, sort of come back that
Speaker 1: once you put you know, Game stop, you know, to
Speaker 1: the Moon back in January, and then it went right
Speaker 1: back down. But they're back and they've really rallied around
Speaker 1: a m C. It's gone up I don't know, each
Speaker 1: week for the past way. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the
Speaker 1: thing with a m C is that they're really united
Speaker 1: on this one. Um when games Stop happened in January,
Speaker 1: then they splintered off. Some people wanted to go into
Speaker 1: a MC, some said silver. This time they're all into
Speaker 1: a MC and it's showing. The volume on a m
Speaker 1: C has been well over a hundred billion over the
Speaker 1: past seven eight days, and it's traded more than any
Speaker 1: other stock for seven days straight. Nothing has traded more
Speaker 1: than Tesla and the Fang stocks for more than a
Speaker 1: day in decades. It's just crazy. So there's a ton
Speaker 1: of activity. And what what I was looking for is Okay,
Speaker 1: AMC is having a good rally like what E t
Speaker 1: F s own it and the the E t F
Speaker 1: that owns the most am C and game Stop together
Speaker 1: about a twenty allocation as of today is uh so
Speaker 1: fis fifty E t F, which I hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: in a while, but now I get it. It tracks
Speaker 1: the stocks that are used by their retail investors on
Speaker 1: the discount brokerage. UM. I've been telling people it's like
Speaker 1: maybe a slightly classier version of the Robin Hood fifty. UM.
Speaker 1: You know the stocks that that were tracked by Robin
Speaker 1: Hood all they stopped letting people track them. But this
Speaker 1: is the probably the best way to capture that sort
Speaker 1: of retail yolo kind of audience, I think. And yet
Speaker 1: it's gone largely unnoticed and it's just been an interesting
Speaker 1: case study for me for a variety of reasons. So
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be interesting to talk to them about
Speaker 1: this e t F but also some of the other
Speaker 1: ones and just sort of how it works into their
Speaker 1: bigger business plan. So joining us from so Far John Gardner,
Speaker 1: he's the business head of investing at so Far. Can't
Speaker 1: wait to speak with him this time on trillions. The
Speaker 1: closest thing to a meme et F you can find, John,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Trillians, Thanks for having me. The e t
Speaker 1: F s F y F is almost the closest thing
Speaker 1: to bottled lightning you could basically have for what's been
Speaker 1: happening in the market this year. How does it feel
Speaker 1: to have bottled lightning? UM? Well, I think we've you know,
Speaker 1: we think about building products that resonate with our members
Speaker 1: and help them become better investors and ultimately a chief
Speaker 1: financial independence over time. UM. And you know we've we've
Speaker 1: launched six ets to date. S F y F was
Speaker 1: born about a year ago, UM and really just replicates
Speaker 1: the top fifty holdings of our members. And you know,
Speaker 1: we thought we saw something very interesting because we have
Speaker 1: as part of a feature of our our retail brokerage platform, UH,
Speaker 1: something we call social Invested. So it's the ability to
Speaker 1: actually follow what other members by and you can see
Speaker 1: sort of buying a percentage basis, but not a dollar
Speaker 1: basis what people are holding, and then you can comment
Speaker 1: and engage with with other members. It's been pretty engaging
Speaker 1: utility for for our members. So on the back of that,
Speaker 1: we launched the s F y f UM as a
Speaker 1: mechanism basically enable our members to very quickly sort of
Speaker 1: replicate sort of the mind of of the group UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's been interesting that I think it's
Speaker 1: a sort of bifurcated between some of the meme stocks
Speaker 1: and then more traditional holdings like Amazon or Apple or
Speaker 1: Tesla that our members hold. Yeah, Joel, look, let me
Speaker 1: give you some numbers on this thing. So it's up
Speaker 1: thirty three percent this year, probably a little more by
Speaker 1: the time this airs. UM the Stars of right the
Speaker 1: Cues is up seven um smps up. That's up more
Speaker 1: because values having a big comeback this year, and then
Speaker 1: ARC is down twelve percent. So it's hard to come
Speaker 1: up with an e t F this year that's sort
Speaker 1: of able to break out unless you're a value stock
Speaker 1: et F for commodities, but for something that holds just
Speaker 1: general equities that are not value stocks. It's just an anomaly.
Speaker 1: And as John said, it's interesting. It's also has like
Speaker 1: a lot of airline companies which obviously aren't you witness
Speaker 1: associate them so much with um, you know, a growth stock,
Speaker 1: it's got um what looks like a pot Company's got
Speaker 1: Berkshire in here. It's got ex On Mobile, which is
Speaker 1: having a great year, Virgin galactic Um. It's a real
Speaker 1: interesting mix. I guess John, could you walk through how
Speaker 1: the stocks are picked and how this et F works
Speaker 1: in relation to those investors that are using your brokerage platform. Sure. So,
Speaker 1: it's the top fifty most widely held US listed stocks
Speaker 1: on our sofa in best platform. And mechanically, the way
Speaker 1: that we look at it is by first the top
Speaker 1: fifty holdings by number of members that actually hold a
Speaker 1: stock or a share or a portion of a stock
Speaker 1: or share in the portfolio, and then we basically wait
Speaker 1: the portfolio based on the value of the shares that
Speaker 1: make that top fifty from waiting standpoint, and then we
Speaker 1: re balanced the portfolio once a month to basically reflect
Speaker 1: the mechanics that I just discussed. And now just real quick, Um,
Speaker 1: your your ideal weight for a stock isn't going to
Speaker 1: be nine, but a MC has grown to We saw
Speaker 1: this with game stock UM and the video game et
Speaker 1: F where it became like a thirty waiting um. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about how that works, Like,
Speaker 1: if the stock like this goes on some crazy run,
Speaker 1: it's going to have a bigger waiting for a while
Speaker 1: until there's a the stock goes back down or rebalance.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. So I think that this was someone
Speaker 1: fortuitous for us. So we saw a massive run up
Speaker 1: into the end of the month, and then we did
Speaker 1: the rebalance. So while the stock was you know in
Speaker 1: the in i think total of holdings for a period
Speaker 1: of time, when we we balanced that it's back to
Speaker 1: somewhe somewhere around a six percent waiting right now. So
Speaker 1: when did you get a sense that AMC was gonna
Speaker 1: light up? I think, as probably most people, we watched
Speaker 1: the NBC all day and you could see that the
Speaker 1: stocks started trending, and you know, we we look at
Speaker 1: all the meme boards, the redded boards and things like that,
Speaker 1: and you can start to see some momentum behind it.
Speaker 1: But again, I think we're we're agnostic, you know, I
Speaker 1: think we're we're we we philosophically, UH as a company
Speaker 1: want to provide a lot of selection for our members
Speaker 1: UH and make it easy for them to invest, which
Speaker 1: is why we do things more broadly on the on
Speaker 1: the retail broken side, like no commissions and being able
Speaker 1: to do fractional share trading. So while it was again
Speaker 1: fortuitous that we saw a sort of a run up
Speaker 1: in the stock, I think we you know, we're literally
Speaker 1: just trying to give our members, you know, the best
Speaker 1: and easiest way to invest their money and then an
Speaker 1: easy way for both our members on the platform, but
Speaker 1: then you know, off platform and other brokerage brokerage platforms
Speaker 1: the ability to sort of easily with a single purchase
Speaker 1: be able to you know, get an exposure to the
Speaker 1: mind of sort of what our members are doing. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that I get asked
Speaker 1: a lot on Twitter, especially when one of these stocks
Speaker 1: goes crazy, is how come there isn't a meme TF
Speaker 1: and trying to explain to people that it is hard
Speaker 1: to predict a meme stock or a situation before it happens.
Speaker 1: Potentially a short squeeze et F would make sense because
Speaker 1: the memurs seem to want to buy stocks that are
Speaker 1: heavily shorted. But I guess this brings up labeling because
Speaker 1: if you look at the c t F, it's taken
Speaker 1: a little bit of cash over the past week. Um.
Speaker 1: But relative to this sort of shiny object moment it
Speaker 1: is having where it's you know, doubling tripling the market, Um,
Speaker 1: it's not a lot. And I wonder if there's any
Speaker 1: temptation to to change it or I don't know, not regret,
Speaker 1: but like do you do you ever think about, well,
Speaker 1: if this had a ticker that was more clear that
Speaker 1: it was tracking retail traders or something or are you
Speaker 1: just let me let me ask a question from my friend.
Speaker 1: Why isn't the e t F called meme or you know,
Speaker 1: a the retail trader something that would allude to the
Speaker 1: fact that you're capturing young retail traders. That is definitely
Speaker 1: missing from the E t F marketplace. That's why it's
Speaker 1: an interesting situation. So I have a couple of observations.
Speaker 1: First of all, I do think the ticker name is
Speaker 1: critically important in creating brand awareness. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of our other products is called the gig g
Speaker 1: i G for the gig economy, which we can talk
Speaker 1: about later. The reason why we didn't call this the
Speaker 1: meme stock um e F is largely because really what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do is reflect sort of the mind
Speaker 1: of the retail invest there. And what's been interesting is
Speaker 1: that while we're capturing I think UM some of the
Speaker 1: early friends for from meme stocks, and you know, and
Speaker 1: more broadly, we've seen like our investors started buying Tesla
Speaker 1: before we got into the SP five hundred, and there
Speaker 1: was a big position in the portfolio. UM. We also
Speaker 1: see that that our retail investors are holding more traditional
Speaker 1: names like Apple and Amazon and Microsoft and Disney UH
Speaker 1: in big positions. So I think you get a good
Speaker 1: balance of sort of opportunistic high price movement UM stocks
Speaker 1: with some of the meme things, but then also more
Speaker 1: high growth, traditional high growth companies. And you know, I
Speaker 1: also think that while you might try to chase the
Speaker 1: meme stocks, and Eric you alluded to this that you know,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to sort of identify what's going to
Speaker 1: take off and and those things, those things turn around
Speaker 1: just as quickly as they as they scale up. So
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying to build basically products that haven'tdurt
Speaker 1: and during value for our members um and are basically
Speaker 1: trying to solve for specific needs. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: the reason we created the s F y F portfolio
Speaker 1: initially was because we saw, as I alluded to before
Speaker 1: on our social investing platform, that there's a high degree
Speaker 1: of interest in following successful investors on the PLA form,
Speaker 1: and we thought this would be a great way to
Speaker 1: sort of very easy make it very easy for our
Speaker 1: members to basically, with one trade, be able to get
Speaker 1: exposure to the mind of basically the entire member basis
Speaker 1: so far okay. So the difference that I guess I
Speaker 1: see here or or could potentially see, is like you
Speaker 1: have a membership and a so far investors set that
Speaker 1: you're clearly targeting, but at the same time, like assets
Speaker 1: under management in this in this particular et F is
Speaker 1: what twenty two million like you there seems like there's
Speaker 1: such a bigger opportunity with a different presence of chicker
Speaker 1: or sell to the marketplace, because I mean, what you're
Speaker 1: what you have under the hood here is kind of amazing,
Speaker 1: and yet the assets still reflected necessarily and look, can
Speaker 1: I jump in on that real quick? Just because we're
Speaker 1: so used to the opportunism in the e t F
Speaker 1: market that it might also speak to your main at
Speaker 1: so far, you're not an e t F fishuer, you're
Speaker 1: a fintech company that that happens to have E t s.
Speaker 1: Can you just walk through that balance and is that
Speaker 1: why that that you can that your aren't maybe thinking
Speaker 1: in such but the word is like marketplace trends and
Speaker 1: terminology and maybe you just have no interest in being
Speaker 1: that thing to the market. Yeah, I think that it's
Speaker 1: I think it would be helpful just to step back
Speaker 1: and sort of introduced so far for those um that
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with it. So we're an online personal finance
Speaker 1: company that enables people to invest, borrow, save, spend and
Speaker 1: protect their money. UM. We were recently listed on the
Speaker 1: nasdac UH. We went public vs back through social with
Speaker 1: Social Capital H and SAM and you know, broadly, our
Speaker 1: goal is to help people achieve their financial independence, to
Speaker 1: realize their ambition. And we'll be able to do that
Speaker 1: for for millions or millions of our members. And you know,
Speaker 1: as I think about the invest leave and specifically for
Speaker 1: for so far, you know, we we want to be
Speaker 1: the one stop shop for our members to help them
Speaker 1: achieve that financial independence. So we started out with auto
Speaker 1: investing and then migrated into also offering a Brokeren solution,
Speaker 1: which we call active investing. And there, you know, we
Speaker 1: were very early on and going commission free. We were
Speaker 1: we were one of the first firms to offer fractional
Speaker 1: share trading that we did UM initially on about a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty names and now we do on about names
Speaker 1: in a real time basis. And then UH in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nineteen, we also launched a crypto platform so
Speaker 1: that basically members that had brokerage accounts could very easily
Speaker 1: open a crypto account UH and get access to something
Speaker 1: more traditional UH cryptocurrencies. And I think as we think
Speaker 1: about why we entered the marketplace for ETFs, you know,
Speaker 1: we want to continue to provide selection for our members
Speaker 1: that help them become better investors. And UM we found,
Speaker 1: you know, we found that there were some interesting request
Speaker 1: the needs that we could we thought we could we
Speaker 1: could support. So we we came to market in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nineteen with our first E t F first
Speaker 1: two E t F s, s F Y and s
Speaker 1: F y X, and we were first to market with
Speaker 1: no fee E t F s. They were basically passively
Speaker 1: managed accounts that were replicating the SMP five and then
Speaker 1: sort of the next five. From there, we've launched a
Speaker 1: handful of other UH E t F s that we
Speaker 1: think meet specific needs for our members. So we came
Speaker 1: to market with a product called t g i F
Speaker 1: which was a week fixed income weekly UH weekly dividend
Speaker 1: payment UM fund, which recently won UH the UH Best
Speaker 1: Best Named E t F for two thousand and twenty,
Speaker 1: and then more recently launched w K o I which
Speaker 1: is basically the equity component of weekly dividend e t F.
Speaker 1: Sea can I jump here on these two? T G
Speaker 1: I F Remember when it came out? So this is
Speaker 1: a it pays the dividend out weekly. Now what's the
Speaker 1: point of this, Like normally an e t F that
Speaker 1: holds equities and whether it's divid or not, will pay
Speaker 1: out monthly. UM Is this is because the younger investor
Speaker 1: wants that payment on a quicker basis or is there
Speaker 1: another reason like what's behind the need for weekly payout? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I think broadly, we you know, as we
Speaker 1: think about so FI RIT large, you know, we help
Speaker 1: we try to help people think about their cash flow
Speaker 1: management UM and We have a tool called Relay as well,
Speaker 1: which is basically our advice platform that you can aggregate
Speaker 1: all your data and we provide helpful tips around how
Speaker 1: to sort of optimize your finances. Uh, And we thought that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think a couple of things. One is
Speaker 1: it's just a more predictive income on a weekly basis.
Speaker 1: And then too, to the extent that you're going to
Speaker 1: sell out of out of the port the out of
Speaker 1: the the e t f UM, you're basically not missing
Speaker 1: any of the fun distributions, which is probably more wele
Speaker 1: than on the w k l Y, which is the
Speaker 1: which is the equity etf But I think it was
Speaker 1: a combination of those two things. So when you think
Speaker 1: about overall strategy and you walk through a lot of
Speaker 1: the products that you you currently have brought to market,
Speaker 1: like what do you what do you feel like the
Speaker 1: endgame looks like I think, you know, we're trying to
Speaker 1: build and they can go back to go back to
Speaker 1: answer your original question. You know, while obviously it's important
Speaker 1: for us to grow assets on these platforms, you know,
Speaker 1: I think ultimately we want to create a suite of
Speaker 1: enduring financial products and ETFs UM that specifically support that
Speaker 1: sort of things that our members are most interested in. So, UH,
Speaker 1: while you know, it's it's uh, it's it's interesting to
Speaker 1: potentially chase UM revenue opportunities and try to scale assets,
Speaker 1: you know, really really quickly, and you never know when
Speaker 1: you're gonna catch lightning in a bottle UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we've had this product in market for less
Speaker 1: than two years. I think all of our funds, like
Speaker 1: we literally have been in market for about two years,
Speaker 1: just over two years for all of them. I think
Speaker 1: what we're starting to see is we're starting starting to
Speaker 1: reach at inflection point UM, both from performance and track
Speaker 1: record that we're starting to get more attention. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I look at this as building and enduring platform of funds.
Speaker 1: We've got six today, we plan on launching another three
Speaker 1: by the end of a year. UM. There'll be more
Speaker 1: thematic in nature. They'll touch on different aspects of what
Speaker 1: we think our members are interested in. UM. You know
Speaker 1: in our view that this this will be a significant
Speaker 1: and profitable stand a little business for for so far
Speaker 1: over time. UM, but it's always going to be in
Speaker 1: the service of really thinking about what our core members
Speaker 1: that are investors on the SOFI active invest platform are
Speaker 1: looking for and building around those needs. Can you put
Speaker 1: yourself in your own portfolio, in your own e t
Speaker 1: F When you say ourselves, you mean SOFI? Yeah, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a great question. So no, So for
Speaker 1: the UH, it would be significantly heavily weighted on s
Speaker 1: F y F if we could know we purposely excluded
Speaker 1: so far as a as a constituent member in the portfolio. Eric,
Speaker 1: does anybody do that? Do they have themselves in their
Speaker 1: own portfolio? Well, this is what aren't got in trouble
Speaker 1: with or not trouble. I don't have a problem with it.
Speaker 1: But in a r k X the space ETF, the
Speaker 1: second or third biggest holding is a r k uh
Speaker 1: PR and T the three D printing e t f
Speaker 1: UM black Rock. They have target date type funds that
Speaker 1: hold black Rock ETFs UM, and black Rock probably has
Speaker 1: a couple of atfs that own black rock stock. It's
Speaker 1: not unheard of. Um, it depends on what it is.
Speaker 1: In this case though, if you're tracking the holdings and
Speaker 1: they outright hold so far way more than a normal
Speaker 1: person would, that you wouldn't want it in there. That's
Speaker 1: like a distortion, but I wouldn't I wouldn't like ding
Speaker 1: them on that if it were like a reasonable waiting John.
Speaker 1: One of the things we talked about a lot is
Speaker 1: how it really does seem like the marketplace for E
Speaker 1: t f s has been polarized, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, between really cheap stuff, you know, cheap beta
Speaker 1: as Eric will call it, and like on the other side,
Speaker 1: shiny objects. And so I'm wondering how you you kind
Speaker 1: of attempt to thread that needle, because in a way
Speaker 1: you can effectively kind of do both. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: I think if you look at the funds that we have,
Speaker 1: obviously we came with the no fee UM e t
Speaker 1: f s and we we decided just to extend the
Speaker 1: no fees for for a third year, which I think
Speaker 1: we're doing the filing for UH this week. UM. I
Speaker 1: think obviously you want to provide value and differentiated value
Speaker 1: from return standpoint that you can charge for UM. We
Speaker 1: currently charge twenty nine basis points for the s F
Speaker 1: y F product because it is basically a mechanical nature
Speaker 1: in the way that we UM construct and manage it.
Speaker 1: And then we charge fifteen nine basis points for the
Speaker 1: gig product because it's an actively managed product. I think
Speaker 1: my view is broadly, you know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's very hard to compete with the eye
Speaker 1: shares of the world at vant guards of the world
Speaker 1: in low costs. So I think where our opportunity is
Speaker 1: is to find uh unique investment opportunities or themes that
Speaker 1: we want to play and and bring those uh to
Speaker 1: our members and you know, be able to charge what
Speaker 1: we think is a reasonable fee of something you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere between twenty nine and fifty nine basis points UH,
Speaker 1: and that's potentially a little bit more if we find
Speaker 1: something that's actively managed, it's a little bit more heavy
Speaker 1: lifting to manufacture and manage. So um. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at your product lineup and there's a couple other
Speaker 1: issuers that we have seen where you could tell there
Speaker 1: it's like maybe they have beta and then they tilt
Speaker 1: urse of growth growth area. I would assume maybe you
Speaker 1: are you looking at other areas that have started to
Speaker 1: come back this year that have been sort of lagging
Speaker 1: for the past decade. That would be value, small caps, um, international,
Speaker 1: emerging markets, commodities. Good question. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: we're spending a lot of time this year UM is
Speaker 1: our retail investor business grows and we we think about
Speaker 1: the types of things that they're investing in UH and
Speaker 1: where we see some thematic trends in the marketplace that
Speaker 1: we might take advantage of, where we want to introduce
Speaker 1: the next funds UM. I think that they're probably less
Speaker 1: focused around sort of style UM and asset class and
Speaker 1: more around thematic investing, where I think it's just a
Speaker 1: way to easily express view UM for our for our members.
Speaker 1: So I want to bring it back to s F
Speaker 1: y F because we started there and I'm curious, like, say, say,
Speaker 1: your members got really keen on on something and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe as keen as they've gone on AMC, and we
Speaker 1: you know, you all have to, you know, give it
Speaker 1: a spot, a special spot in in the portfolio and
Speaker 1: in the e t F. Well, what happens if it's
Speaker 1: a done right? AMC definitely went up and and everyone
Speaker 1: looks like geniuses for it. But but what happens if
Speaker 1: it goes the other way? So a couple of things. So,
Speaker 1: so one, we have a security max weight of ten
Speaker 1: percent on the rebalancing, so there's some constraint even if
Speaker 1: you see an outsized position in the portfolio and a
Speaker 1: sector sector max weight of thirty UM with buffer to
Speaker 1: sort of the limit UM turnover around those numbers, and
Speaker 1: then we'll rebalance on on a monthly basis. So I
Speaker 1: think it would naturally wash out, uh, you know, on
Speaker 1: the rebalancing both the upside, and then if things underperformed
Speaker 1: that we would reweight them down UM to sort of
Speaker 1: manage against that. All right, John, I've got my closing
Speaker 1: question for you, which is what's your favorite e t
Speaker 1: F ticker that is not your own? Um. I really
Speaker 1: like what Kathy Wood's doing at ARC obviously. I think
Speaker 1: it's a line to the types of things that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, big, big thematic trends in the marketplace. You know.
Speaker 1: I think she's a good thinker and taking relatively concentrated
Speaker 1: positions and being early on things. And UM, I like
Speaker 1: the brand because I think they're so transparent in the
Speaker 1: way they think about uh, their investment ccs, how they're
Speaker 1: doing research, and what's in the portfolio. Okay, so that's
Speaker 1: a vote for a r K K. Okay, there we go,
Speaker 1: John Gardener, thanks for joining us on trillions. Nice out
Speaker 1: with you. Guys, Thanks, thanks for listening to Trillions. Until
Speaker 1: next time. You can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, Apple podcast Spot, Defy, and wherever else
Speaker 1: you like to listen to, but 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 Paul Junas, and you can find more
Speaker 1: about so Fie at Sofi. This episode of Trillions was
Speaker 1: produced by Magnus and Rixon Manjessica Levy is the head
Speaker 1: of Conberg Podcast. Bye m