Speaker 1: Welcome a Trillian's I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Balcunas.
Speaker 2: Eric.
Speaker 1: If there's one state that you'd like to go to
Speaker 1: other than Pennsylvania and New York, it would be Florida, Florida.
Speaker 2: I'm a Florida Manngel, I really am. I'm destined to
Speaker 2: live there.
Speaker 1: And you went to a trade show, which is a
Speaker 1: thing we've done before and we will probably do again.
Speaker 1: What was the trade show.
Speaker 2: Exchange ETFs, which was formerly called Inside ETFs, but this
Speaker 2: they switched the names. Inside ETF still exist, but that's
Speaker 2: run by a different company, but the people who starred
Speaker 2: inside the ETFs left started a new conference called Exchange.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, this is the one.
Speaker 2: This is the comic con of ETFs. This is the
Speaker 2: one I go to all year. This is one to
Speaker 2: bring my whole team to Joel, we spend the money.
Speaker 2: I've got to argue up to my managers. This is
Speaker 2: worth the money. We all go. Everyone's there. It's intense.
Speaker 2: It's fifteen hours of networking by eight nine o'clock. I
Speaker 2: am so ready to isolate and watch like a TNT movie.
Speaker 2: You know, I am fried. I have nothing left and
Speaker 2: then you wake up and do it all over again.
Speaker 1: So again, we sent you with a recorder so that
Speaker 1: at least some of your interactions we could, you know,
Speaker 1: end up with some tape that we could listen to
Speaker 1: some takeaways and talk about some trends and maybe get
Speaker 1: some insights and learn about a few new products.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is great, you know, Magnus gave me this
Speaker 2: little recorder. I mean, I could use my phone, but
Speaker 2: the recorders better. I just whip it out. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: can I record you? And most people there are there
Speaker 2: to talk and get attention, so it's not that hard.
Speaker 2: There's only one person I asked to record that declined.
Speaker 2: I won't say who it was, but they're lost, Joel.
Speaker 1: This time on trillions exchanges at exchange about exchange traded funds. Okay, Eric,
Speaker 1: We got about a dozen or so people that you
Speaker 1: spoke with, tons of different products and themes. Who are
Speaker 1: going to start off with you?
Speaker 2: Start off with Ali Doyle, who is head of ATP
Speaker 2: Listings at NASDAC. This is a perfect conference for her
Speaker 2: because you know, when you have a bunch of ETF fishers,
Speaker 2: what they want is advisors to sell to and to
Speaker 2: market to and the media, and so they're always looking
Speaker 2: for a visor by advisors getting for almost no money.
Speaker 2: It's like they're like Ladies night, they're the ladies. In
Speaker 2: Ali's case, the issuers are her clients. So this is
Speaker 2: perfect for her. So I thought we'd start with her,
Speaker 2: and I just sort of got a feel for what
Speaker 2: she's there for and you know what kind of interactions
Speaker 2: she's having Exchange. Just to give you a quick feel
Speaker 2: for like somebody working the conference.
Speaker 3: The Exchange conference really is our super bowl for ATF listings.
Speaker 3: You know, for us, it's a great opportunity at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the year to not just interact with our
Speaker 3: clients issuers that are already listing on NASDAK, but really
Speaker 3: get to know the broader issuer community, you know, build
Speaker 3: some new relationships and also with the market makers. You know,
Speaker 3: we'll work a lot with the trading community, and it's
Speaker 3: a great opportunity to build those relationships here at the
Speaker 3: conference as well.
Speaker 2: And what's your pitch to them versus listing on like
Speaker 2: Nicey or another exchange.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, every exchange sort of has their different
Speaker 3: take and different branding. Right now, ZECH is very aligned
Speaker 3: with innovative new products, you know, a lot of tech,
Speaker 3: you know, creativity that we're bringing to the table. So
Speaker 3: for us, you know, we really think about being a
Speaker 3: full extension of our issuers team really from pre to
Speaker 3: post launch. A lot of that is around marketing how
Speaker 3: we can help issuers promote their products and a lot
Speaker 3: of the liquidity you know, that comes from training on
Speaker 3: Nasdak Nazak is the largest equity US equity venue, and
Speaker 3: so we take a lot of pride in that and
Speaker 3: making sure issuers know that's you know, that's who they're
Speaker 3: working with as their listing exchange.
Speaker 2: So Joel you can see, obviously perfect for her talking
Speaker 2: to marketers. And the other reason I talked to Ali
Speaker 2: is I never met her before, even though she runs
Speaker 2: in the same circles. But we were paired together for
Speaker 2: this game show that Todd Rosenbluth put together inspired by
Speaker 2: our episode about I don't know three or four months
Speaker 2: ago where we had the trivia game. They had an
Speaker 2: on stage game show and Ali and I were partners.
Speaker 1: How'd you guys do?
Speaker 2: We kicked but we won legit. However, we were so
Speaker 2: in the lead that the end they felt bad and
Speaker 2: they said, Okay, this next question is worth ten was
Speaker 2: the last question, just so the people who were like
Speaker 2: below could come up and win, and to be nice,
Speaker 2: we didn't answer. We let them answer it, and they
Speaker 2: won in this sort of weird socialist way. But straight up,
Speaker 2: we got the most answers and she was on the ball,
Speaker 2: and I think we should do another game show episode
Speaker 2: for on this with people from the industry like her.
Speaker 2: It was fun.
Speaker 1: I like the sound of all of that. We also
Speaker 1: had a kind of a weird ending of our tribute.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, so who are we listening to next?
Speaker 2: Jeremy Senderwick's who is a lawyer for Vetter Price. One
Speaker 2: of the biggest issues at the conference was this idea
Speaker 2: that now that the Vanguard patent is expired, all mutual
Speaker 2: funds can now add an ETF share class to their
Speaker 2: mutual fund. Bolt it right on. This is a big deal.
Speaker 2: This could be thousands of ETF share classes on mutual funds.
Speaker 2: I can't overstate it. Katie Grayfield did a whole story
Speaker 2: on it based on her time at the exchange. So
Speaker 2: I asked Jeremy, who's a lawyer works with the SEC
Speaker 2: you know about whether this will happen this year? Sooner
Speaker 2: or later, and what the hurdles are because this is
Speaker 2: probably after the Bitcoin, this is probably the next big
Speaker 2: issue for the ETF industry.
Speaker 4: Well, it's very tough to say because there have been
Speaker 4: a number of applications filed, but there's been no public
Speaker 4: movement on it. The SEC has put the word out
Speaker 4: to the industry that they won't be formal movement on
Speaker 4: these applications until the swing pricing proposal is settled in
Speaker 4: one way or the other.
Speaker 1: What's the swing pricing proposal.
Speaker 2: It's just about how navs are struck for fixed income
Speaker 2: mutual funds. I won't go into details, but I don't either.
Speaker 2: They can work it out, it's not it's something that
Speaker 2: can be worked out. And especially you have Fidelity DFA.
Speaker 2: There was some other big, gigantic company that also Morgan Stanley.
Speaker 2: Those are powerhouse asset managers and the ICI, they're all
Speaker 2: behind this. So I have faith that these big companies
Speaker 2: are going to be able to work it out with
Speaker 2: the SEC, and in a year or so we'll have
Speaker 2: ETF share classes, which you know, again are going to
Speaker 2: be major. You know, our big theme this year for
Speaker 2: our outlook was the many roads to ETF It's one
Speaker 2: thing to launch a clone, it's another thing to convert
Speaker 2: your mutual fund. And now I have a third way,
Speaker 2: which is a share class. Speaking of bitcoin, let's go
Speaker 2: into the bitcoin. I got a couple interviews lined up
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: This was how much bitcoin was there at the conference.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal. It was a lot of
Speaker 2: the buzz.
Speaker 1: It's also in Miami.
Speaker 2: It is in Miami, right, Yeah, So a couple things. First,
Speaker 2: I moderated the crypto panel, which I think, according to
Speaker 2: all the articles on it was the most attended. They
Speaker 2: had this thing called Silent Disco where you put the
Speaker 2: headphones on. They ran a headphones stroll. We sold the
Speaker 2: place out, and this is like early in the morning,
Speaker 2: you know, when everybody's hungover and stuff and doing just
Speaker 2: back from yoga on the beach and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: We sold it out. It was one of the better sessions,
Speaker 2: I thought. And then Gray Scale had the huge booth.
Speaker 2: They kind of took all the attention with this massive booth.
Speaker 2: And then they had a huge drone show at the
Speaker 2: end of the last night where they had drones making
Speaker 2: the bitcoin sign and the blockchain. And so definitely, if
Speaker 2: I ten years from now, when I think back on
Speaker 2: all these conferences, to me, this will be the bitcoin
Speaker 2: ETF one.
Speaker 1: Okay, so who's the first guest to talk about bitcoin?
Speaker 2: Well, we should open with the big dog, Blackrock. So
Speaker 2: we got Jay Jacobs, who's us head of Thematics and
Speaker 2: Active Equity. This is the guy who's out there marketing ibit,
Speaker 2: which is black Rocks Bitcoin ETF, which is already i
Speaker 2: think like six seven billion dollars again smashing records for
Speaker 2: a ETF that's six weeks old. So I have two
Speaker 2: clips for him. The first is on basically why black
Speaker 2: Rock did this. This is a little out of character.
Speaker 2: They had never filed in previous and we just sort
Speaker 2: of hous it going. So that's the clip the first one.
Speaker 5: It's been incredibly exciting. I think going into this launch,
Speaker 5: we knew there would be a lot of interest. We
Speaker 5: heard from clients over several years that they were looking
Speaker 5: at a bitcoin ETF as really being kind of the
Speaker 5: silver bullet for getting really you know, high quality, efficient,
Speaker 5: easy access to bitcoin, and so a lot of our
Speaker 5: expectations have been met so far. I think what's interesting
Speaker 5: is who's buying it, And I think early on, when
Speaker 5: you see this amount of money coming into new ETF.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of people who already developed an investment
Speaker 5: thesis around bitcoin. These are people who maybe already decided
Speaker 5: they wanted exposure, but weren't happy with how they were
Speaker 5: getting the exposure, and the ETF is kind of that
Speaker 5: great way to get precise exposure to bitcoin alongside stocks
Speaker 5: and bonds in their portfolio. What we haven't seen yet
Speaker 5: is people who are just starting that investment journey where
Speaker 5: they have not previously really considered bitcoin because they couldn't
Speaker 5: get exposure to it, and now they're learning about the asset,
Speaker 5: going through the education, they're trying to understand how it
Speaker 5: fits in a portfolio. And this is going to be
Speaker 5: a longer term process for a lot of investors who
Speaker 5: are really kind of starting it, you know, in a
Speaker 5: lot of ways, kind of their first day of understanding bitcoin.
Speaker 2: And let's go over to the second clip, which is
Speaker 2: selling to advisors. This is the big target market for bitcoin,
Speaker 2: the boomers, just I mean, how do you position this
Speaker 2: to an advisor in a.
Speaker 5: Missouri One of the things we hear a lot from
Speaker 5: advisors is that they have clients that already own bitcoin
Speaker 5: and they are looking for a better way to get
Speaker 5: exposure to it. Their clients either don't want to deal
Speaker 5: with hot you know, cold storage, hot hot wallets, they
Speaker 5: don't want to deal with you know, trading it a
Speaker 5: on a crypto exchange, and so the ETF really solves
Speaker 5: a lot of challenges for them. So frankly, a lot
Speaker 5: of the conversations we've had, I've been around, my client
Speaker 5: has exposure to this. They want a better way to
Speaker 5: get exposure to it going forward.
Speaker 2: So listen, Joel, you know, forget the society's going to collapse.
Speaker 2: L Salvador uses it. This guy you could you could
Speaker 2: talk to. This is the guy who's promoting bitcoin ETFs.
Speaker 2: This is a Again, I can't overstate how they've taken
Speaker 2: this sort of wild subculture sure and streamlined it into
Speaker 2: a guy like.
Speaker 1: Jay plugged and played it into a big ETF conference.
Speaker 2: Well, but also just listen to the way he talks.
Speaker 2: If you're in Missouri and you're conservative, you're managing client assets,
Speaker 2: you would hear this person out, whereas a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff you hear from the bitcoin be scary. It
Speaker 2: would just scare advisors off. So translating the bitcoin message
Speaker 2: through the sort of prism of people like Jay and Blackrock. Again,
Speaker 2: this is why we were so bullish.
Speaker 1: Also also interesting that, as he points out, the people
Speaker 1: who were familiar with this stuff already are the early adopters,
Speaker 1: and there's so much more room for growth there when
Speaker 1: you think about anybody who might entertain doing this and
Speaker 1: come into the asset cold. All right, who's next?
Speaker 2: The other The number two in the race is Fidelity.
Speaker 2: They've taken in again, I think five to six billion.
Speaker 2: Greg Friedman, who heads up all the ETFs.
Speaker 6: First mover is important, but this is a big enough
Speaker 6: category with so much anticipation that there's probably room for
Speaker 6: a few of us to actually be at the levels
Speaker 6: that we are. But we're thrilled with the early returns
Speaker 6: and is succeeded expectations.
Speaker 2: And we saw that you added some to a model
Speaker 2: in Canada. Your conservative allocation model for fidility had a
Speaker 2: one percent crypto. Are we possibly going to see, you know,
Speaker 2: Fidelity and others incorporate these into models.
Speaker 6: I would anticipate. I don't know when. This is an
Speaker 6: exciting asset class, no different than you know, fixed income
Speaker 6: or equity.
Speaker 2: So there you go, man. This is again Fidelity has
Speaker 2: tons of advisors. Blackrock doesn't have an advisor network. They're
Speaker 2: just an asset manager. But Fidelity has like advisors, like
Speaker 2: a lot of our parents would use a Fidelity advisor.
Speaker 2: And they've already put a one percent allocation in their
Speaker 2: model in Canada. And this again speaks to the power
Speaker 2: of how much Fidelity can just sort of bring assets
Speaker 2: in just by telling all their advisors we're into this,
Speaker 2: you know, from the home office nucleus. So again, a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff is very powerful.
Speaker 1: It's like this now for the thing, and suddenly it's
Speaker 1: like institutional money is pouring into this. Yeah, okay, who's next?
Speaker 1: Okay not bitcoin?
Speaker 2: No, we got two more?
Speaker 1: Oh jeez, more bitcoin. This really was the bitcoin cover.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm trying to look. We're going to look back.
Speaker 2: This was the bitcoin okay. Kathy Chrisky, one of my
Speaker 2: favorit people in the industry, has a great personality. She's
Speaker 2: the investo's commodity strategist, so they also have bitcoin etf now.
Speaker 2: She's all into commodity. She's been on ETFIQ. She always
Speaker 2: says the two w's Warren Weather good for commodities. And
Speaker 2: her message on bitcoin was interesting because as a commodities person,
Speaker 2: how much does she accept bitcoin or reject it? And
Speaker 2: I asked her about the use case because all these
Speaker 2: other commodities have a use case, even gold. Well, what's
Speaker 2: bitcoin's use case for her?
Speaker 7: It is a currency, right, even though it's not used
Speaker 7: primarily as a currency, but it is a sort of
Speaker 7: store of value. And that's where when people get like
Speaker 7: they don't understand bitcoin, I said, let's go back to
Speaker 7: digital gold.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 7: When I first joined the bitcoin team, because bitcoin's a commodity,
Speaker 7: I was frustrated by any analysis I saw about digital
Speaker 7: gold and people saying like, oh, quarter of the gold
Speaker 7: investors are gonna shift to bitcoin.
Speaker 2: I was like, are you kidding?
Speaker 7: Have you met a gold investor? You're gonna have to
Speaker 7: pry that gold out of their dead hands, right, they
Speaker 7: don't sell their gold. I was like, but now like
Speaker 7: understanding that it is a store of value, right, and
Speaker 7: especially the younger generation, they've been in this asset class
Speaker 7: for so long and yet now they have a more
Speaker 7: an easier access point with the ETF. But really, like,
Speaker 7: I feel like it is like a currency. It is
Speaker 7: a store of value like gold. It makes sense for investors,
Speaker 7: but again, small allocation it's still volatile. But that's another
Speaker 7: one of my preconceived notions. I think everyone's got wrong.
Speaker 7: People think the volatility for bitcoin is over one hundred percent.
Speaker 7: I was like, okay, yes, ten years ago it was
Speaker 7: actually one hundred and twenty percent, but now it's forty
Speaker 7: seven percent. And with natural gas becoming so volatile, I said,
Speaker 7: most of the time, it's ninety percent now. So think
Speaker 7: about that, Bitcoin is almost half the volatility of natural gas.
Speaker 7: And I think the average investor has no idea about that.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's it's getting it's calming down a little, Joel.
Speaker 2: But listen the big takeaway here Fidelity, black Rock Investco.
Speaker 2: We're talking trillions and assets. He's heard from three of
Speaker 2: their top people, not to mention all the wholesalers. Again,
Speaker 2: you got to consider this is an army of sales
Speaker 2: going on. And again this is I think part of
Speaker 2: what makes underestimating the ETF largely probably a mistake.
Speaker 1: It is just wild to think about how much the
Speaker 1: conversation has changed. Isn't it before the ETF to after
Speaker 1: the ETF.
Speaker 2: And of course their motive, I mean some it's hard
Speaker 2: to tell you money on this. Yeah, are they really
Speaker 2: orange pilled or they just revenue pilled.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell revenue pilled. Man like that. It's
Speaker 1: bottom line, this is this is how this works. Okay,
Speaker 1: who's the last bitcoin voice? And then never again?
Speaker 2: Okay, now we have yeah we There was a guy
Speaker 2: who was there, Frank Schaparro, who is director of Special
Speaker 2: Reports and a host of the Scoop podcast from the Block.
Speaker 2: So this is a bitcoin native guy. So he is
Speaker 2: a bitcoiner, kind of crypto guy. I was curious how
Speaker 2: he felt at the ETF conference and as sort of
Speaker 2: a stranger in a strange land.
Speaker 8: I mean, I've been kind of blown away at the
Speaker 8: extent to which crypto has actually been taking seriously. Like
Speaker 8: I've been to other financial conferences, whether it's market structure
Speaker 8: of trading, and they make the FTX show because they
Speaker 8: make the jokes about it being a ponzi. But I
Speaker 8: think that it's carried a bit of bravatas at this
Speaker 8: event that has surprised me, especially with Brayscale obviously having
Speaker 8: like that sort of center booth, one of the more
Speaker 8: impressive booths, and a very nice event last night. So
Speaker 8: I think people are taking crypto seriously here. It's it's
Speaker 8: not like in your face, Like it's not like the
Speaker 8: most important conversation being you had, but it's definitely a
Speaker 8: it's definitely something to talk about here.
Speaker 2: What would you say the boomer factor is on a
Speaker 2: scale of one, that's ten, honestly, not that boomer.
Speaker 1: I'd put it out like a six and a half.
Speaker 8: I mean, this is very other ATF community is very robust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, because I get called a boomer in a
Speaker 2: suit constantly on Twitter troll even though I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm pretty.
Speaker 1: Happy kind of are but yeah, I'm gen x.
Speaker 2: We fought the boomers first, and now look at you.
Speaker 2: Uh so six pointy five isn't bad.
Speaker 1: But what's also interesting about this is like it just
Speaker 1: speaks to what what you were kind of the before
Speaker 1: and after thing. Right before there was so much uh concern,
Speaker 1: and now it's now that it's gone institutional and you
Speaker 1: see this. It's like even the folks that were hardcore
Speaker 1: crypto can see a light.
Speaker 2: Okay, next guest, Okay, let's go back to some vanilla.
Speaker 2: You got ready for the scoop of vanilla? After that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: like we did the topics for the crazy stuff. We
Speaker 2: did the m and ms and the chocolate fudge first.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to the Yeah, let's go for Hollyframs
Speaker 2: that Capital Group head of Global Product strategy and Development.
Speaker 2: So hollywoods from black Rock joined Capital Group. I just
Speaker 2: asked her about when you have an active fund which
Speaker 2: they're growing, how hard is it to displace index funds
Speaker 2: in the core. That is no small task, Torol Capital Group.
Speaker 9: ETFs are definitely sitting at the core of client portfolios.
Speaker 9: We're seeing really two flavors of investment. One, clients who
Speaker 9: have model allocations appreciate the ETF vehicle, utilizing our funds
Speaker 9: sitting at the core just as they would an index product.
Speaker 9: And two we're really seeing clients come back to Capital
Speaker 9: Group who maybe had moved toward the ETF vehicle, had
Speaker 9: to move toward index management, and are now recognizing that
Speaker 9: as they have increased choice, they're going to come back
Speaker 9: and they're going to select that active management again. So
Speaker 9: we're seeing flavors of both, but definitely at the core.
Speaker 1: Okay, so active ongoing conversation about how that's sort of
Speaker 1: been perhaps kind of the next dimension of where ETFs
Speaker 1: can go and grow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, Capitol Group had a little party
Speaker 2: DFA had a that James and David went on the
Speaker 2: active companies are spending more money at the conference. They're
Speaker 2: making a splash. Definitely a change from several years ago. Again,
Speaker 2: this all evolves. It was a smart beto, was was
Speaker 2: a big thing a couple of years. Then it was ESG.
Speaker 2: Active is one of the bigger themes and one of
Speaker 2: the bigger sponsors. Next, speaking of active, so active passive.
Speaker 2: That whole debate that we've had many times, it's like
Speaker 2: back in the headlines, back in the headlines because David Einhorn,
Speaker 2: who's a hedge fund manager pretty popular, said something about
Speaker 2: how it was kind of like screwing up the market.
Speaker 2: Also two barrier hilts, two barry red holts, although he
Speaker 2: did say, look, you know it's our job to capitalize
Speaker 2: on that inefficiency. But anyway, brought it back up. And
Speaker 2: one of the people that I debate constantly on this
Speaker 2: is Mike Green of Simplify, and so I got Mike there.
Speaker 2: Mike and I had gone back and forth on Twitter
Speaker 2: a little bit, little little debate going on, but I
Speaker 2: like Mike and he's we disagree on this, but he's
Speaker 2: always civil and he's nice. So I caught him and
Speaker 2: I asked them for his elevator pitch on why this
Speaker 2: matters to a rural person.
Speaker 10: So the problem is unfortunately not an individual problem. It's
Speaker 10: a societal problem. What we're actually doing is is we're
Speaker 10: taking liquidity out of the market. You and I have
Speaker 10: had discussions around how much cash, for example, as being
Speaker 10: held at active funds versus passive funds. The holding of
Speaker 10: cash creates option value, It creates the ability to generate
Speaker 10: liquidity internally. It gives me the flexibility to meet a redemption.
Speaker 10: It gives me the flexibility to buy something without necessarily
Speaker 10: having to sell something. When you change to passive vehicles,
Speaker 10: you've robbed the market of that flexibility and it creates
Speaker 10: a much more brittle situation that becomes much more sensitive
Speaker 10: to the flows in and out of the market.
Speaker 2: So he's basically saying index funds don't have any cash
Speaker 2: on hand right they invest at all because they don't
Speaker 2: want to have good tracking. So in something they get money,
Speaker 2: they just buy stocks indiscriminately. And again, I think we
Speaker 2: should have Mike on down the road and have this debate.
Speaker 2: Every time I did a spaces with him gets a
Speaker 2: lot of engagement people are very interested in this debate,
Speaker 2: even though it feels a little tired to me. But again,
Speaker 2: passive keeps growing, so it's going to be a debate
Speaker 2: and it's going to flare up and then it's funny.
Speaker 2: I recorded another like ten minutes with him, but I
Speaker 2: had to cut it because I knew we were gonna
Speaker 2: go down a rabbit hole and we did.
Speaker 1: Okay, running corner, only a couple more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's next? Okay, next up, Let's go over some
Speaker 2: classic issuers at the conference, kind of hawking their wares,
Speaker 2: you know. So here's Garrett Stevens, who we had on
Speaker 2: the show. He's a white label issuer. When you go
Speaker 2: to the Fountain Blue, first of all, there's pictures of
Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra all over the walls, like he's like the
Speaker 2: King of the Fountain Blue. His spirit hovers over the
Speaker 2: whole thing, you know. And I read in a book
Speaker 2: there was like mafia hits in the lobby, like people
Speaker 2: have died in that lobby. Not that he was related
Speaker 2: to the mafia, but you get the idea. So there's
Speaker 2: a pool area where you have to walk on this
Speaker 2: little sidewalk in the middle of the water to get
Speaker 2: to a circle, and the circle is where Garrett Stevens
Speaker 2: booth was, which was one of the cooler areas. So there,
Speaker 2: literally their booth is in the middle of a circle
Speaker 2: of water. How cool is that? So I just asked him,
Speaker 2: like what he's doing there and how he's trying to
Speaker 2: pitch being a white label issu or to some of
Speaker 2: the people there who are just walking around the conference.
Speaker 11: So we have some of our existing clients here who've
Speaker 11: launched funds with us, so we're helping them get exposure
Speaker 11: talk to advisors that are here walking around. Then we're
Speaker 11: talking to other advisors that are here walking around about
Speaker 11: launching funds and telling them why they ought to have
Speaker 11: their own et apps. So we spend our time doing that,
Speaker 11: and we're talking to all the service providers in the industry.
Speaker 11: So we've got everybody here that you could ever want
Speaker 11: in one place for two very long days trying to
Speaker 11: get a bunch of stuff done. So it's great.
Speaker 2: And I asked him because he was about a foot
Speaker 2: away from water behind him, and I asked him if
Speaker 2: anybody had slipped in the wall pool yet, and he
Speaker 2: said no, So I knew you were wondering.
Speaker 1: I was just fearing for his laptop.
Speaker 2: So while I was talking to him in the circle.
Speaker 2: Because remember Garrett Stevens is the equivalent of like music producer,
Speaker 2: He's got artists on his white label stable. One of
Speaker 2: those people is the Music ETF. Even though I just
Speaker 2: used that metaphor MUSQ is this new thematic music industry
Speaker 2: ETF very interested in. Yes, by David Schulholf, who's founder
Speaker 2: and CEO of this A lawyer from music industry. Used
Speaker 2: to own the rights to songs from Tupac, Third Eye Blind,
Speaker 2: your favorite band. I know, Jumper was your wedding song.
Speaker 2: So he was really interesting. We got to I think
Speaker 2: we should have him on for the full Monty show
Speaker 2: because I just love the idea that these indie issuers,
Speaker 2: like if blackrock does music ETF. I'm sorry, it's just
Speaker 2: not as interesting because they're just like put for sure.
Speaker 2: But this guy's from the industry. He sees what's going
Speaker 2: on the ground floor, and he's like, this is worth
Speaker 2: me doing all this for. So here's a little talk
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 1: By the way, that was a nice third I play signer.
Speaker 12: So I've been in the music industry for like thirty years. Yeah,
Speaker 12: I had a music publishing company called Evergreen Copyrights. I
Speaker 12: used to own all the rights to Tupac Shakor, to
Speaker 12: MC hammer, to Jjklee. We won the Grammy with Eric Clapton,
Speaker 12: Bill Monroe. We had everything from Bill Monroe to death Row.
Speaker 12: So I owned about one hundred thousand songs. We had
Speaker 12: offices in Nashville, in la.
Speaker 2: In London.
Speaker 12: So I've been in the industry for a long time.
Speaker 12: I was also the president of music at IM Global.
Speaker 12: I produced Clive Davis's film The Soundtrack of Our Lives,
Speaker 12: which I sold to Apple, which is a number one
Speaker 12: music doc today.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 12: And I started off my career as a vice president
Speaker 12: at Disney overseeing music for mier Max and Dimension Film.
Speaker 12: So I really know nothing about anything except music, and
Speaker 12: I know music really well.
Speaker 2: I love this. I love the indies. A lot of
Speaker 2: them are just so passionate. You know, Perth Toll with
Speaker 2: her Freedom meetif I remember the whiskey guy, He's straight
Speaker 2: from Kentucky, lived amongst barrels of whiskey all day. I
Speaker 2: just think these stories are so interesting. I hope we
Speaker 2: have them on. He also talked about you know, I
Speaker 2: use the MP three a lot in a metaphor for
Speaker 2: what ETFs have done to finance as a disruptor. But
Speaker 2: since the MP three cochroal music industry went got cut
Speaker 2: in half, but now it's double where it was because
Speaker 2: they figured out new ways to make money with Spotify
Speaker 2: and that, and that's why he's so excited. I just
Speaker 2: think it's a good time to go into it. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I was not even meaning to interview my Scott talking
Speaker 2: to him like, Okay, I gotta I gotta talk to you.
Speaker 2: That's why it's handy having that little mic in my bag.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think we're almost to the end.
Speaker 2: We are last, but not least David Ahbak. He's Cio
Speaker 2: Hoya Capital. This guy loves reats. He lives it, eats it,
Speaker 2: walks it, sleeps it. He's walking around. He's got a
Speaker 2: grateful dead dress shirt on. So again, people are able
Speaker 2: to show a little more of their personality here. It's
Speaker 2: not all suits, although since the big companies came in,
Speaker 2: it's a little more stuffy. But he's kind of a
Speaker 2: classic ETF Fisher independent and here he is ready on
Speaker 2: the drop of a dime to give you his pitch
Speaker 2: for why reads Now you're out here. You've got a
Speaker 2: grateful dead shirt on. You're pitching reads, read ETFs. Why reads?
Speaker 11: Why not?
Speaker 13: There's the fact cutting interest for it's this year probably
Speaker 13: if they cut interest rates this year. Let me phrase that,
Speaker 13: when they cut interest rates this year, the reachs are
Speaker 13: the first sector to respond on that interest rate cut.
Speaker 13: Ask any of these bitcoin guys, where does bitcoin fit
Speaker 13: in the portfolio? I don't know where does ESG fit
Speaker 13: in the portfolio. I don't know where to reach in
Speaker 13: real estate fit in five to fifteen percent of the portfolio.
Speaker 13: So as a result, when the Fed cuts rates, it's
Speaker 13: the reachs the first sector respond. So now is the
Speaker 13: time to start positioning that portfolio for the pending rate cut,
Speaker 13: and reads are the rates are the beneficiary of that.
Speaker 2: Like those digs at his piers there, get it grateful
Speaker 2: that cheer onde and look, look everybody not everybody's into
Speaker 2: the bitcoin thing. This guy's like, yeah, he's all these
Speaker 2: big they don't they don't know. Yeah at the portfolio,
Speaker 2: that's a lot, that's pretty good. Yeah. So yeah, so
Speaker 2: he took a shot at ESG and bitcoin, which are
Speaker 2: the two last flavors of the month of these conferences,
Speaker 2: which is small. I mean, you're competing against mutual funds,
Speaker 2: of course, but you're also competing as amongst each other
Speaker 2: on the ground floor there, so I thought he was
Speaker 2: kind of alematic of that, and he's also just the
Speaker 2: good guy was there. I was preparing my crypto panel
Speaker 2: notes right before the session, having my muffin which I
Speaker 2: poured into yogurt, and he was just sitting there quietly
Speaker 2: letting me prepare and good guy.
Speaker 1: Best part about this episode you went to a trade
Speaker 1: show for two days. I listened to about thirty minutes
Speaker 1: and it was probably all I needed. Well done, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Listen one of these years you're going to go. You
Speaker 2: keep like flirting with it.
Speaker 1: Why would I can do it in thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: There's way more than this, So much more happened, trol.
Speaker 2: Come on, Eric, you gotta go next year.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to trillions. Until
Speaker 1: next time. You can find us on the Bloomberg terminal,
Speaker 1: bloomber dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you'd
Speaker 1: like to listen. We'd love to hear from you. We're
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I'm at Joel Webber Show. He's at Eric
Speaker 1: Baltuno's This episode of Trillions was produced by Magnus Hendrickson
Speaker 1: Bye