Speaker 1: Welcome are Trallians.
Speaker 2: I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Belchernas.
Speaker 3: Eric, it's the time of the year where everybody gets
Speaker 3: crazy costumes for Halloween and we have this annual tradition
Speaker 3: of sorts on trillions where we talk about the ETF Graveyard.
Speaker 3: Every time this time of year roll's around.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 4: It feels right, and it's also good to look at
Speaker 4: what didn't work and do a post mortem, why did
Speaker 4: something not last? Sometimes these are shockers, and sometimes these
Speaker 4: are totally expected, and some you just don't even notice,
Speaker 4: you know, they just fade into oblivion and next thing
Speaker 4: you know, you're in your team chat and you're like,
Speaker 4: what in the hell happened to this?
Speaker 2: And you pull it up and it's liquidated. And that
Speaker 2: happens all the time, Joel.
Speaker 4: So this year there's about one hundred and fifty liquidations
Speaker 4: which were already make it the third biggest year of liquidations.
Speaker 4: It's only got i mean still got a shot to
Speaker 4: be the second and possibly the record, but we're in launches.
Speaker 4: This is crushing the record. So the gap between launches
Speaker 4: and liquidations is actually pretty wide. Sometimes that gap shrinks
Speaker 4: when the market's really rough because there's more liquidations, less launches.
Speaker 4: But I think that gap being wide also points to
Speaker 4: how great the markets are. I mean, everything's up, gold, bitcoin, stocks, bonds,
Speaker 4: name it. You know, it's having a good year. So
Speaker 4: which tells me if you close this year, you.
Speaker 2: Must really be suck and wind. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: All right, So to help us take a tour of
Speaker 1: this year, if.
Speaker 2: You close this year, you have major issues.
Speaker 3: It's gonna it's a spooky laugh there from Eric. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: So to help us take a tour of this year's
Speaker 3: ETF graveyard, were joined by Vildana Hadric Across, asset reporter
Speaker 3: with Bloomberg News, In Bluth, an ETF analyst with Verify,
Speaker 3: and Athanasios Sara Vegas, an ETF analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 3: this time on.
Speaker 1: Trillions the ETF grad.
Speaker 3: Todd vil Donna, Athanasios, Welcome back to Trillions.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 6: Nice to see you guys.
Speaker 3: Okay, Eric, very high level. Were there any big takeaways
Speaker 3: other than the numbers that jumped down to you? What
Speaker 3: about themes or issuers or anything anything else specific.
Speaker 4: You know, I was looking through the closures and it
Speaker 4: was just so so much variety. If there was one
Speaker 4: thing that I was shocked to see so much of
Speaker 4: it was international, which kind of makes sense because of
Speaker 4: all the things I said doing so well, one thing
Speaker 4: that isn't doing great is international. It's okay, but some
Speaker 4: countries have really just been like struggling for this whole.
Speaker 4: Like you know, in the US, everything's so wonderful and bullish,
Speaker 4: but not every country's like that. So there were a
Speaker 4: good degree of international ones. Definitely some sustainable esg as
Speaker 4: we predicted before it was cool, and then like some
Speaker 4: thematic ETFs, you know, like work from home, that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff that you know already feels kind of dated.
Speaker 4: That's generally what I've found in here, but you know,
Speaker 4: you look through here, there are some there's much more
Speaker 4: than that, but a very diverse group of ETFs here.
Speaker 4: I suppose one common thread would be that most of
Speaker 4: them would be very tiny allocations in your portfolio. None
Speaker 4: of these are like big vanilla stuff.
Speaker 3: All right, Todd, you brought some candy, I did. There's
Speaker 3: a candy pack on the table. We're gonna be very
Speaker 3: careful not to touch too much of the candy pack.
Speaker 3: But it's a combo of kit Kat, Twizzlers, Reeses and
Speaker 3: Hershey fees on. How do you feel about this selection
Speaker 3: of chocolate that Todd brought.
Speaker 7: I'm not thrilled with it.
Speaker 3: I guess it's candy. It's more than chocolate. What's the
Speaker 3: what's the high?
Speaker 7: Swizzlers are no good? They are the same category for
Speaker 7: me as Swedish fish, which I think are Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's something about red chewy stuff that you.
Speaker 2: Let's say, your trick or treating. You go to his house.
Speaker 2: He shows you this basketfull that you're allowed to pick.
Speaker 2: Do you just walk away? Yeah? Yeah, for sure. I like,
Speaker 2: you know, thanks, And then what would you say if
Speaker 2: that happened?
Speaker 5: I would say, if you invite me someplace, I'm going
Speaker 5: to bring a present, and you don't insult the present
Speaker 5: that shows up front, You're gonna get a lecture when
Speaker 5: you when you walk away, and when I walk back
Speaker 5: out of the Bloomberg office, thanks for hosting me. You
Speaker 5: can then talk about the candy all you want. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna have the races because those are delicious.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 7: The kit Cat is not bad?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: All right, So there may be some candy that we
Speaker 3: bestow during this run Todd. Do you have a couple
Speaker 3: ETFs off of this year's list that you'd like to discuss?
Speaker 5: Well, I like that Eric front ran this by naming
Speaker 5: one of them, So I'm not going to use that
Speaker 5: work from Home ETF that was on my list because
Speaker 5: he already took He already covered that, so I don't.
Speaker 5: Since I think I only get a couple of bites
Speaker 5: at the kit kat, I'm not gonna waste it on that.
Speaker 5: So I'm going to group a couple of them together
Speaker 5: if I can. I think there were three cannabis ETFs
Speaker 5: that closed Global X, Cannabis POTX, the Axis Cannabis ETF THHCX,
Speaker 5: and Subversive Cannabis ETF, which I think just launched a
Speaker 5: year beforehand or just came to market LGLZ. We saw
Speaker 5: a hope with MJ when it converted, and we saw
Speaker 5: advisor shares have success with cannabis thematic ETFs, and then
Speaker 5: we had eight or nine of them relatively quickly. Now
Speaker 5: we have a lot fewer because they're in the graveyard
Speaker 5: those cannabis ETF so MSOs is still about a billion
Speaker 5: dollars I think roughly nine hundred million in assets, So
Speaker 5: there is a leader clearly in this space. But three
Speaker 5: ETFs just didn't make the cut.
Speaker 3: So you think that speaks to the there was just saturation,
Speaker 3: and now we're to a point where the winners have
Speaker 3: emerged and the losers are backing up.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think there's a race to get into an
Speaker 5: ETF space and try to differentiate, certainly in the thematic world,
Speaker 5: all taking a slightly different approach, and then the market
Speaker 5: decides a couple of years later who's gonna make it
Speaker 5: work and who's not gonna make it work, And three
Speaker 5: three thematic ETFs, three cannabis ETFs didn't survive this year.
Speaker 4: I would say that some of these were real late.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're in a tiny category and you're
Speaker 4: like third or.
Speaker 2: Fourth, you got a shot.
Speaker 4: But if you're like eleventh or twelfth, unless you are
Speaker 4: bringing something really novel, I mean, even my shares will
Speaker 4: struggle at that rate. It's just the pond is just
Speaker 4: too small. There's only like three fish in there. You
Speaker 4: can't be like the eighth fishermen. It's just too little,
Speaker 4: so too little, too late, dollar late, no dollar short
Speaker 4: day late.
Speaker 3: Okay, Todd, I thought, I think that's a really interesting observation. Uh,
Speaker 3: what other observations did you muster?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess I'll I'll stick on the international theme
Speaker 5: that Eric talked about again. Global Actually they stand out
Speaker 5: as first of all, as a firm that closed the
Speaker 5: number of funds they I guess finally is the word
Speaker 5: I would use closed their Chinese sector suite of products.
Speaker 5: So there was the global X China Infotech ETX ETF
Speaker 5: excuse me, chik, the global X China Financials ETF CHIX,
Speaker 5: and I think six or seven other ones. I didn't
Speaker 5: write them all down or type them all down here.
Speaker 5: Sector investing is very popular in the United States, the
Speaker 5: sector spiders the Vanguard suite of products. It's not popular
Speaker 5: investing outside the United States. So China was out of
Speaker 5: favor in general. But slicing up the Chinese market in
Speaker 5: individual sectors, I don't think that ever took off, and
Speaker 5: global X finally decided they were going to shut the
Speaker 5: shut the door on those products.
Speaker 4: One thing about that, I will say, when you see
Speaker 4: a product close and you look at the market and
Speaker 4: you're like wow, because the market's been down four or
Speaker 4: five years, I almost feel like that's a signal to buy.
Speaker 4: Because China just went on a tear. So this thing
Speaker 4: and you know, Athanasius and I have these different framings
Speaker 4: for things. And there is this sort of group of
Speaker 4: ETFs that seem to like they liquidate right before their
Speaker 4: number comes up.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before.
Speaker 4: We can't find a metaphor for it. Somebody said, oh,
Speaker 4: leaving the movie right before the good part happens, or
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes they get recycled.
Speaker 2: We call that the Lazarus list.
Speaker 4: But there is a group like the short Squeeze ETF
Speaker 4: liquidating like three months before the game stop stuff.
Speaker 2: It happens occasionally.
Speaker 4: If that China Healthcare ETF we're around, I bet it
Speaker 4: gets a couple of bites because there is a feeding
Speaker 4: frenzy in China right now. So it's interesting looking through
Speaker 4: these for maybe by signals.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just think I think there's a need for
Speaker 5: I think there's demand for China ETFs. And Kweb is
Speaker 5: shown that there's success in a targeted China ETF. I
Speaker 5: didn't list it here. I don't know the ticker, but
Speaker 5: there's a China Utility ETF. I don't think the American
Speaker 5: investor is going to be moving into that one anytime soon.
Speaker 5: So what's interesting to me is sometimes we'll see a
Speaker 5: firm just decide we're going to cut the whole suite
Speaker 5: as opposed to just pulling out an individual one. And
Speaker 5: I think that's certainly the case with global X.
Speaker 4: Can I bring up one of the global X the
Speaker 4: close which is interesting, which was the Nigeria ETF. So
Speaker 4: this ETF I have a long history with this fund.
Speaker 4: First of all, I always just thought, Wow, this is
Speaker 4: how far ETF can go. They can get to Nigeria.
Speaker 4: It was like, wow, we get you know, anything with
Speaker 4: an ETF. And then over the years, like when I
Speaker 4: joined BI, they were like, oh, do some more modeling
Speaker 4: and stuff Like I was like all right. So I
Speaker 4: would have this report where I would look at ets
Speaker 4: by lowest price to earnings ratio to be like, hey
Speaker 4: it's got a low PE, maybe it's a good buye.
Speaker 4: And this is how I learned the hard way that
Speaker 4: like a low PE doesn't necessarily mean it's a good bye.
Speaker 4: So the Nigeria ETF would always be lowest. It would
Speaker 4: have a P of like four, right, Like that's like
Speaker 4: the S and P is like what twenty five? Yeah,
Speaker 4: So you're like so I was like oh, maybe the
Speaker 4: Nigeria and it would go to three. So this Nigeria
Speaker 4: ATF is such a great lesson in like, no matter
Speaker 4: how low you think the basement is, there could be
Speaker 4: like a cellar door to that too, Like it never
Speaker 4: ends with skeletons.
Speaker 5: And but nobody ever bought the ETF. I mean, I
Speaker 5: know other people might have seen that.
Speaker 4: Never went on a run, right, it never got out
Speaker 4: of the basement. It only went to another basement.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to make a Halloween joke here.
Speaker 2: I'm trying someone. I'm throwing out so much stuff for
Speaker 2: you guys.
Speaker 3: The classification. There's like the tomb and then there's the headstone.
Speaker 3: You know, we could be we could we could have some.
Speaker 1: More fun with us.
Speaker 3: Okay, Todd, run rund it out. What's your what's your
Speaker 3: last observation?
Speaker 5: All right, well my last.
Speaker 1: There'd be more, I'm sure, but yeah, last one.
Speaker 5: The last one I just want to highlight is the
Speaker 5: Tickers Journey Jr. And why it's the ALPS Global Travel
Speaker 5: Benefit Sherr's ETF because Vetefy is actually the was the
Speaker 5: index provider behind it.
Speaker 1: And wait, wait to make this about yourself.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm not making it about myself. I'm in the
Speaker 5: Bloomberg office. I imagine that we're gonna hear about some
Speaker 5: Bloomberg index based products.
Speaker 7: They're all really great, They're all really good.
Speaker 5: They have they none of them have ever none.
Speaker 2: That you think we're gonna like subtly promote all of
Speaker 2: our own stuff.
Speaker 5: Well, the reason this caught my eye was we I
Speaker 5: think we were on together in the past talking about jets.
Speaker 5: So the jets ETF, which soared in demand around just
Speaker 5: as the pandemic was happening. It was a three billion
Speaker 5: dollar RETF. It's now a billion dollar RETF. We just
Speaker 5: haven't seen demand for travel related ETF's Journey just didn't
Speaker 5: survive despite having exposure to airlines and other travel related areas.
Speaker 5: And so I don't think people know of vetify as
Speaker 5: an index provider. So figured i'd shouted out that we
Speaker 5: lost one of our children earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Journey may be gone, but don't stop believing.
Speaker 1: It's gonna say there's a travelers.
Speaker 4: Is anybody not think of a Journey song when they
Speaker 4: see that ticker.
Speaker 3: It's like I was going to say, maybe it was
Speaker 3: the wrong ticker, because you know, people were associating it with.
Speaker 5: Music and there we now have those.
Speaker 4: It's also honestly like there's five or six of these
Speaker 4: traveling you even though one the first one from Invesco.
Speaker 2: Probably doesn't have that much an assets. That's a tough secker.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a it's a narrow theme.
Speaker 3: Okay, Bill, Donna take us through the graveyard with flashlight.
Speaker 2: What did you find that's really good?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I tried to group them, as you guys did, into categories.
Speaker 7: So to continue Todds, there's a bunch from the pandemic
Speaker 7: that closed that were really emblematic of the pandemic. So
Speaker 7: you mentioned the Work from Home Fund, Eric, that's I
Speaker 7: w f H. I work from home maybe, but the
Speaker 7: I because it's Eye Shares, it only got like two
Speaker 7: point nine million dollars.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 7: It's just interesting to see, especially in I Shares Fund clothes,
Speaker 7: and they did have a couple of closures GERM g
Speaker 7: R M Amplify Treatments, Testing and Advancements ETF also only
Speaker 7: got like ten million dollars, and then last year at
Speaker 7: the end of last year we had m R n
Speaker 7: A clothes I think, so just you know, the pandemic
Speaker 7: era is really over, it's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I like GERM was during during COVID, GERM had the
Speaker 4: most hardcore vaccine type companies. What was the other one
Speaker 4: that was competing with Germ that they put out and
Speaker 4: it was all full of like it had like Netflix
Speaker 4: in it, Bug or something.
Speaker 2: Somebody else put out put out one.
Speaker 6: That was like yeah, GERM was Pacer, right, no, amplify amplify.
Speaker 6: Then Pacer had one, but I forgot the ticker.
Speaker 4: Pacer had one and it had like it was very oh,
Speaker 4: it was called the virus v I r S. So
Speaker 4: it's interesting. These are great one two study with like
Speaker 4: how to make sure to do your homework.
Speaker 2: VRRS was like broad.
Speaker 4: It was like, hey, let's put Netflix in there because
Speaker 4: more people will be home watching Netflix.
Speaker 2: That's a stretch, right.
Speaker 4: GERM was like hardcore and it gave like Maderno and
Speaker 4: some of these companies that weren't quite a big waiting
Speaker 4: a big waiting, And I actually thought it was the
Speaker 4: perfect ETF to play the COVID and the sort of
Speaker 4: medical response. But VRS got a little more of the assets.
Speaker 4: Now they're both liquidated, like neither of them could like
Speaker 4: turn that whole pandemic into success.
Speaker 2: And even the work from Home, by the way.
Speaker 4: WFH, which was the original that has twenty four million.
Speaker 4: So like almost everything pandemic related just gonevie one.
Speaker 5: I just said I like germ. Is that I'm so
Speaker 5: thrown by the fact of I'll.
Speaker 2: Be honest with you, I do like germs.
Speaker 4: I'm a fan of putting, you know, being natural out there,
Speaker 4: letting the germs come in your system, and giving your
Speaker 4: immune system practice.
Speaker 2: So in a way, I do like germs.
Speaker 5: Okay, I've been fighting a coll for a little while.
Speaker 5: Would you like a sip in my soda?
Speaker 2: I'm not that hardcore, but I generally open to germs.
Speaker 7: Alright, this is fascinating, all right. My second category is
Speaker 7: I tried to look for the same issuer liquidating funds,
Speaker 7: and so if I had five liquidate and all of
Speaker 7: them had really really good tickers B YOB be your
Speaker 7: own boss, ETF which is a gig economy, tf E,
Speaker 7: n r G which is smart energy, t WEB which
Speaker 7: is web three weekly, w k l Y was a
Speaker 7: weekly dividend ETF, and t G i F a weekly
Speaker 7: income ETF, and all of those, I mean, they just
Speaker 7: had some such good tickers, very little money in them.
Speaker 1: So what do you think.
Speaker 3: Was it just clearing house? Just like, let's look at
Speaker 3: the bottom of the barrel and close up shop.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm looking here and it doesn't look like you know. Look,
Speaker 4: if you're a thematic ETF acute ETF, you need two.
Speaker 2: Things to happen. To get assets.
Speaker 4: You need a shiny object moment. I don't think any
Speaker 4: of these really went to the stratosphere. The second thing
Speaker 4: you need is when everybody's looking at you in the
Speaker 4: sky like a shooting star. They got to think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know a guy did this, or I saw a
Speaker 4: video of a robot doing a summersault. This must be real.
Speaker 4: You can need the imagination to lock in with the price.
Speaker 4: And I don't think any of these had either of those.
Speaker 4: I mean, be your own boss, gig economy, I mean
Speaker 4: maybe there's a little of that, like oh, I've seen
Speaker 4: some people, but like, that's why I think AI and
Speaker 4: Robotics is the most powerful theme right now, because it
Speaker 4: does have these nice pops and everybody has starting to
Speaker 4: see AI touch their lives or videos of stuff, and
Speaker 4: those two things together I think are a powerful combination
Speaker 4: for theme. If you don't have both of those or
Speaker 4: at least one of those, you're probably gonna fail.
Speaker 5: I just think they didn't commit to that. They still
Speaker 5: haven't committed to the ETF space so far. I mean,
Speaker 5: they've have a brokerage platform that appeals to a younger
Speaker 5: investor base, but that's all that. I think their efforts
Speaker 5: are to try to tap into that base, as opposed
Speaker 5: to fully embracing the ETF community and the marketing efforts
Speaker 5: that are needed to have distribution.
Speaker 2: On the flip.
Speaker 4: Their SOFI Select five hundred has about a billion, and
Speaker 4: I agree they're not out there that much, but that
Speaker 4: so FI five hundred is a much more like broad
Speaker 4: appealing fund versus like the Beer Own Boss and byob
Speaker 4: by the way, is not known for beer and Boss
Speaker 4: move for bring your own beer.
Speaker 2: That's a whole other issue with that.
Speaker 6: One thing I was gonna add about the Donna's picks
Speaker 6: that I like about. I love how opportunistic the industry is,
Speaker 6: right so work from home, work from home ETFs, trade
Speaker 6: war ETFs, mag sevent ETFs. But you gotta be careful
Speaker 6: with that because once that trade fades, there's this risk
Speaker 6: of closure. But I love that they can jump on
Speaker 6: an idea really quickly. Yeah, and this brings me up
Speaker 6: to K pop. So K pop is not on the list,
Speaker 6: but in our team chat we troll Ethan constantly because
Speaker 6: just the fact that K pop still exists bothers him.
Speaker 6: He thinks it should have been gone by now. It's
Speaker 6: down like seventy percent since it launched or something crazy.
Speaker 6: It's got no assets and it just keeps going. I
Speaker 6: think the guy we interviewed the guys started this is
Speaker 6: not his main thing. He's off doing all this.
Speaker 4: I think he just forgot he launched it, and it
Speaker 4: just it exists to bother him.
Speaker 3: Well, man, I love that. Maybe next year Ethan, uh
Speaker 3: Bill Donald bring us home. What was the what was
Speaker 3: your last one?
Speaker 7: More set from the same issuer, and it's Subversive Capital.
Speaker 7: So you guys already mentioned l G LZ the cannabis ETF,
Speaker 7: but they closed a bunch of other ones K CAL
Speaker 7: K c A L which is food security sane really
Speaker 7: good ticker s A n E. It's the mental health ETF,
Speaker 7: the legalized and then d k RB which was a
Speaker 7: decarbonization ETF. They charged a lot all of them and
Speaker 7: just garnered just so little in assets, like five hundred
Speaker 7: thousand dollars per So those are really interesting because Subversive
Speaker 7: has two other Congressional Trade tracker ETFs crews and Nance
Speaker 7: kr U Z n A n C. Those have flows
Speaker 7: and Nance n A n C is actually beating the
Speaker 7: S and P five hundred this year, which is really interesting.
Speaker 7: So those are those are still going just I guess
Speaker 7: these four couldn't couldn't really garner attention.
Speaker 1: Interesting, All right, they've done it for your first You get.
Speaker 3: A kick cat, which is thank you so much, your
Speaker 3: favorite of those options that Todd gave you.
Speaker 2: Uh again, I'm going to give it to after.
Speaker 3: Okay, Athanasius, thank you you got some uh some stuff
Speaker 3: to show us with a flashlight in the graveyard.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I do.
Speaker 6: But actually these two like robbed most of my ideas.
Speaker 6: But there's a couple of that works.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's a dirty business, you know.
Speaker 6: So I had a couple of those picks. But one
Speaker 6: we didn't talk about was a cryptocurrency, so a vank
Speaker 6: Ethereum Futures e f U T was the ticker. But
Speaker 6: I think this closed for a good reason. It's because
Speaker 6: Etheroeum spotty tfs became live. So there's a better product.
Speaker 6: There's a better exposure to theory, and so all the
Speaker 6: future based ones had closed out. I think there was
Speaker 6: a bitcoin strategy one they also had that closed as well,
Speaker 6: But this one is just a byproduct that a better product.
Speaker 1: Had come along and replaced it.
Speaker 5: So basically, you're telling Eric that the crypto theme really
Speaker 5: didn't work in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at it that way, it
Speaker 1: actually we could use that.
Speaker 2: It's too weak of a troll.
Speaker 1: It's two weeks.
Speaker 2: There's too much, so much better.
Speaker 1: I used the troll, but.
Speaker 5: I just gave up.
Speaker 1: I was like, it's just it's too tired.
Speaker 7: You know, they have billions of influence.
Speaker 5: Listen when when when when there's ETF closures within the industry,
Speaker 5: that's a sign that it's at the top, right, Isn't.
Speaker 2: That how this works?
Speaker 4: In that case, that thing gets got rolled over by
Speaker 4: all the new ones which were giving you.
Speaker 2: Direct look in an ETF.
Speaker 4: In the ETF world, if you can give it to
Speaker 4: somebody direct, physically backed, they're going to choose that they
Speaker 4: want the real thing. Nobody wants in direct ways of
Speaker 4: getting exposure. Generally, you're being too calm about this. I'm
Speaker 4: trying to get you to.
Speaker 2: It's two weak of a troll. He's done better.
Speaker 6: Uh no, but it's to your point that once investures
Speaker 6: want the real things, once a better product comes along,
Speaker 6: they will naturally just go over to that.
Speaker 1: All right, Nathan, what else you got? All right?
Speaker 6: I was gonna mix this one up. Can I pick
Speaker 6: one that hasn't died but has its tombstone picked out already?
Speaker 1: Because it's it's.
Speaker 2: Gonna close already talked about K pop?
Speaker 1: No, this is another one.
Speaker 6: This is it already has a closure day and now
Speaker 6: so it's FM, which is the I Shares Frontier Markets ETF.
Speaker 6: They announce it they're gonna close, they said maybe early
Speaker 6: next year. And this one's pretty interesting because it had
Speaker 6: about four hundred million in assets, so it's pretty odd
Speaker 6: to see an ETF that large close. So we kind
Speaker 6: of looked at why are they closing? And it's frontier markets,
Speaker 6: so it's very kind of small liquid markets. It was
Speaker 6: actually problematic for them to run it, so they decided
Speaker 6: that it wasn't worth running it if they couldn't do it.
Speaker 6: So they're starting to unwind it, and anyone does have it,
Speaker 6: just keep in mind like it's pretty much just holding
Speaker 6: cash now, so which is slowly sort of unwinding itself,
Speaker 6: but that's something that is going to close. They don't
Speaker 6: know officially, but they said sometime in the first quarter.
Speaker 5: So we lost Nigeria and we're about to lose frontier markets.
Speaker 5: Was Nigeria part of the frontier markets?
Speaker 6: I don't remember, but I think it is in that
Speaker 6: in that category.
Speaker 5: But we still have Vietnamese ETF.
Speaker 2: So the rtical closed too. There's still the.
Speaker 5: Vanak Vietnam ETF that is a frontier market. I think.
Speaker 4: Honestly, FM went on a tear like seven or eight
Speaker 4: years ago. I like it because it's all these countries
Speaker 4: that are it's almost like investing in like I don't know,
Speaker 4: double A baseball players or something, because they got to
Speaker 4: go to emerging markets and when they get picked to
Speaker 4: come up, their country goes up big time. And this
Speaker 4: is where we catch it. You don't get it after
Speaker 4: you get it when it's in FM. I think our
Speaker 4: shares was just reviewing and it was just too painful
Speaker 4: because I called them and then I it's funny someone
Speaker 4: was interested in like buying it from them and like
Speaker 4: and basically like restarting it. But they they were like, Nah,
Speaker 4: we're just you know, we don't want to We're closing
Speaker 4: it because we think it's bad for the public, not
Speaker 4: because of finding financial reasons, so they don't want to
Speaker 4: like get have anything to do with it. But I
Speaker 4: do think this is a not bad Lazarus List potential.
Speaker 1: But it's got to close first, so keep an eye.
Speaker 3: I had another Eye Shares one that kind of caught
Speaker 3: my eye that I wanted to ask you about, Eric,
Speaker 3: which was I a u F Which was the I
Speaker 3: Shares Goldie TF, Like, it's really shocking that, you know,
Speaker 3: gold is totally on a tear this year and then
Speaker 3: one of the biggest names in ETS decides to close
Speaker 3: it down.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask what you made of that?
Speaker 4: Oh, I see this, correct me if I'm wrong, Todd
Speaker 4: or Ethan, But this is a Gold strategy. I believe
Speaker 4: they were trying to use the future's curve and like
Speaker 4: pick out the right futures at the.
Speaker 2: Right time or something.
Speaker 1: So pretty technical.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nobody Again, if you have a commodity where you
Speaker 4: can physically store it, no problem.
Speaker 2: Nobody's gonna pick the futures. So that's my take. You
Speaker 2: got it? Am I wrong there?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: I think that's the case. But they still have very
Speaker 5: popular IAU that that's seen a lot of inflows. And
Speaker 5: I think they have a lower cost version that the
Speaker 5: ticker's failing me at the moment.
Speaker 1: I U M.
Speaker 2: Maybe something like that.
Speaker 5: It's their GLDM version that has seen a lot of success.
Speaker 2: This aum what you Matt? Yeah, look at that.
Speaker 5: When you stroll by the graveyard, you pick up a
Speaker 5: couple of ideas along the way. So I Shares is
Speaker 5: still committed to the gold space, just not into the
Speaker 5: future side.
Speaker 4: All right, IAU M one point four billion? Who they
Speaker 4: grew up so fast. They grow up fast or they liquidate, which.
Speaker 1: Is why we're here. Ethan.
Speaker 3: Uh, you get a Hershey's for your efforts today. All right, Eric,
Speaker 3: bring us on. What else?
Speaker 1: What else jumped out at you?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: Micro sectors US, big oil three X. At the time
Speaker 4: this came out, it was I think the most volatile
Speaker 4: e TN. It was ne TN ever introduced. It had
Speaker 4: two billion dollars. So I asked Mike Eshman over at
Speaker 4: micro Strategies, like, Hey, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: You got a huge hit on your hands. Why would
Speaker 2: you close it?
Speaker 4: He said, Look the size and concentrated nature of the
Speaker 4: basket made it difficult to hedge, so they have Oi
Speaker 4: l U, which is a bit more diversified, so they
Speaker 4: they as Ethan kind of calls it flew too close
Speaker 4: to the sun. I think there is a point where
Speaker 4: it's just too it's too much, too far away from home,
Speaker 4: and this one was and that's tough to give up.
Speaker 4: But they were probably hearing it from the ecosystem. Hey man,
Speaker 4: we cannot make a market in this, and we're not.
Speaker 4: And you can't leave your ETF out there without market
Speaker 4: makers interested in working with it, So that one stuck
Speaker 4: out to me.
Speaker 5: It's the first ETN we've talked about, I mean, which
Speaker 5: shows you how much the industry has is We talked
Speaker 5: about exchange traded products, but it's mostly exchange traded funds,
Speaker 5: and most of these that we're talking about are so tiny,
Speaker 5: you know, certainly less than one hundred million up for
Speaker 5: the FM one which hasn't yet closed, So calling it
Speaker 5: a little bit.
Speaker 4: Early death watch death watch, Yes, yeah, okay, another one.
Speaker 2: The alpha dog atf HM. Great ticker rough, are you ff?
Speaker 1: There are some incredible tickers in this list.
Speaker 4: So I don't totally know who was behind this. I
Speaker 4: remember when it launched and I was like kind of
Speaker 4: a cool memorable you know, it just hits quickly and
Speaker 4: you get it. This is someone going out and being
Speaker 4: a dog for Alpha.
Speaker 1: What did Alpha dog hold?
Speaker 2: So this was here's what it says.
Speaker 4: It invested primarily in large and mid cap securities, so
Speaker 4: it was just an active fund coming to the market.
Speaker 4: Now Indie sounds like indie. I don't think it was
Speaker 4: connected any bigger firm.
Speaker 2: But here's the problem.
Speaker 4: It was ninety basis points and it launched in October
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one rate before the Sahi t hit the fan,
Speaker 4: which was twenty twenty two when the FED rays rates.
Speaker 4: And so this thing launched right into a buzzsaw. And
Speaker 4: if your game is just alpha, it's hard to launch
Speaker 4: to a bus all like a theme metf can launch,
Speaker 4: go down and then come back up and still have
Speaker 4: the shiny object moment.
Speaker 2: But so bad timing.
Speaker 4: Highphee. Indy wasn't meant to last. But that said, it had.
Speaker 4: I remember filing. I remember it launching because it actually
Speaker 4: broke through the clutter with that name sough rough rough rough.
Speaker 5: It's rough out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well it got put down Okay, what else you got?
Speaker 2: This is pet cemetery stuff.
Speaker 5: This is man but we still have By the way,
Speaker 5: we still have S dog and I dog.
Speaker 2: We do a lot of dogs.
Speaker 1: Left pause.
Speaker 3: Eric found found the corner of the cemetery that nobody
Speaker 3: really wanted to touch, and he took us there.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, you know, I got to pick this one.
Speaker 4: You know's what is it? He knows it's got to
Speaker 4: be an ESG fund. Well I have one of those,
Speaker 4: but okay, yeah, so I'll go there the Wisdom Tree
Speaker 4: ESG fund R E s P. And look, Wisdom Tree
Speaker 4: isn't really into this. I mean, let's just face it.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of firms that are really into ESG,
Speaker 4: and I think they'll carry on. You know, you got
Speaker 4: to really be into it. They that's not their thing.
Speaker 4: Like a currency had GTF, Wisdom Tree is really into.
Speaker 4: They're gonna keep those open. It's the Johnny cum Lately's
Speaker 4: little closed. In fact, there was a currency heagg from
Speaker 4: I shares I shares Hedge Hedge Germany, which closed because
Speaker 4: that's not really their thing. So if it's not your
Speaker 4: thing and you launch late, you don't see you're just
Speaker 4: gonna close it. And speaking of these ESG closures, you know,
Speaker 4: I was predicted there would be a bunch of closures,
Speaker 4: so I bet Todd and I was right, but I
Speaker 4: was one year early.
Speaker 2: So he ended up winning that one. Technically, so I
Speaker 2: ate a steak.
Speaker 4: Technically you did that, you paid for you did technically, Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: you did.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 2: I got a little excited with this prediction, but it
Speaker 2: ended up being right. Now.
Speaker 4: You know what they're doing. Now they're taking ESG and
Speaker 4: just kicking out of the name. So they're gonna keep
Speaker 4: the fund around, just move ESG. ESG is almost borderline radioactive.
Speaker 4: It's become like not just like profitable. I think if
Speaker 4: you're a wholesale and you show up to like an
Speaker 4: advisor in like Nebraska or Texas or anywhere, I don't
Speaker 4: think the advisor now to have the client react to
Speaker 4: ESG and the fund.
Speaker 2: It's got too much baggage. So this is a real
Speaker 2: problem they have.
Speaker 4: The hardcore like hippie types are gonna seek this out
Speaker 4: and buy it, so there will be a small niche.
Speaker 4: But outside of that, all these Johnny com Lately and
Speaker 4: tourists ESG issuers, they're gonna close these funds, so not shocked.
Speaker 4: There no the one I wanted to pick, the one
Speaker 4: on the list that really hurts. Inverse Jim Kramer s Jim, Now, listen,
Speaker 4: remember I predicted, or I even recommended to the industry
Speaker 4: they should launch this. Matt Tuttle did it. God bless him.
Speaker 4: He launches you know, all kinds of stuff and he
Speaker 4: even track Kramer's picks. The problem with this ETF wasn't
Speaker 4: the idea, it was the execution. This ETF is designed
Speaker 4: to go long his short picks and short his long picks.
Speaker 2: Makes sense.
Speaker 4: The problem is then you have a long short portfolio,
Speaker 4: so every day they mostly offset, so the movement in
Speaker 4: the fund was very low vall. It never it could
Speaker 4: never get a shiny object moment. What he should have
Speaker 4: done is had two ETFs, long his shorts that done,
Speaker 4: and short his lungs. Because I'm telling you, this guy
Speaker 4: is spectacularly wrong on a regular basis. All he need
Speaker 4: is a couple of those grand slams and one of
Speaker 4: these would have had that shiny object moment. This was
Speaker 4: designed wrong, and I think if total we're here, he
Speaker 4: would agree. But maybe they'll try it again.
Speaker 1: Another Lazarus list candidate.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no way. I mean it was a
Speaker 5: gimmick that failed.
Speaker 4: I just told you it was design wrong though, and
Speaker 4: but it got no money because people like it can
Speaker 4: ever go.
Speaker 5: People like to shout at the TV when something goes wrong.
Speaker 5: It don't break out their money in to gimmick. It
Speaker 5: was a gimmick. And if I can go back for
Speaker 5: a second, they're pulling ESG off of the name because
Speaker 5: the regulators are requiring that they have ESG in the
Speaker 5: name that it fits certain subjective criteria in terms of
Speaker 5: what the SEC says. So we're seeing names come off
Speaker 5: for ESG because the fund can't operate with ESG in
Speaker 5: the name. It isn't because what do you call it?
Speaker 5: Hippies from from from where? That isn't the reason behind.
Speaker 1: Wait to critique that one.
Speaker 4: Okay, are the regulators also why the outflows are coming into.
Speaker 5: Well, the fs do that too. The funds closed, So
Speaker 5: that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: So anyway closed.
Speaker 5: The names didn't change for that reason.
Speaker 3: I think Todd's bitter about you know, nobody really like
Speaker 3: liking his candy selection.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1: You're happy with.
Speaker 3: That's the goal is like when you put the candy
Speaker 3: bull out and nobody likes the candy and you get
Speaker 3: to keep it.
Speaker 1: All all right.
Speaker 4: Just a couple of quick a couple other ones quickly
Speaker 4: the arrow reverse cap five hundred yps, which is spy backwards.
Speaker 2: This took the S and P and just reversed weighted it.
Speaker 4: It was like, so it's like yours market cap weight
Speaker 4: we get mag seven at the top, equal weighted. Everybody's
Speaker 4: two percent or this, which is everything is reverse reversed,
Speaker 4: So the bottom of the S and P has the
Speaker 4: biggest waiting.
Speaker 2: So honestly it's all of midcaps. Sometimes midcaps have a run.
Speaker 2: This thing was just very novel.
Speaker 4: And I remember Phil back when he used to run
Speaker 4: it had used the reverse card, the UNO card.
Speaker 2: I thought that was kind of cool marketing.
Speaker 4: And the ticker was good, but innovative idea wasn't meant
Speaker 4: to be. It gave it a good like what five
Speaker 4: or six years?
Speaker 5: Is there anything that could perform worse than the opposite
Speaker 5: of the nag?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like I said, it's this time d And then
Speaker 4: here I've got innovator triple stacker January.
Speaker 3: You know the word innovator, I see it multiple times
Speaker 3: on this list at least three. What's up with the
Speaker 3: one that you picked?
Speaker 4: Well, innovator in this case is the name of the
Speaker 4: company versus say the direction Moonshot Innovators, which is more
Speaker 4: of a Kathy Wood type ETF that didn't work out,
Speaker 4: But this one is well call him at this one.
Speaker 4: I always loved the triple stacker, which makes me think
Speaker 4: of like a Denny's breakfast item. You know, hey, I'll
Speaker 4: take the triple stacker. Sonny set up ye wheat toast,
Speaker 4: thank you, But it didn't work out here.
Speaker 2: It didn't work out.
Speaker 4: It wasn't the I don't know bad, it just wasn't
Speaker 4: the right thing. The innovator, to their credit, they've innovated.
Speaker 2: They've innovated quite a.
Speaker 4: Bit, and they really introduced the buffer. They created that category.
Speaker 4: First Trust has actually taken in more flows this year
Speaker 4: than them, but they're doing fine. This one didn't work out.
Speaker 4: And then finally the Procure Disaster Recovery ETF FEMA. This
Speaker 4: was from Andrew Chain and who who really was behind
Speaker 4: the famous hack Hack went to a new firm, put
Speaker 4: his all into this.
Speaker 5: He sillys ufo.
Speaker 2: He stills ufo.
Speaker 4: But this one, especially after the hurricanes. Thought it might
Speaker 4: have had a nice little run, but it couldn't really
Speaker 4: get going. So I bet someone Lazarus lists this one
Speaker 4: disaster recovery. We'll see, but and then another one all
Speaker 4: got out throw in there. I share his Pakistan, I
Speaker 4: know in over single countries, I thought that one would
Speaker 4: find a market just because it was so volatile and
Speaker 4: could really provide a lot of juice. But like I said,
Speaker 4: international across the board had a tough time because the
Speaker 4: US just dominated so much.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, this was another great year through the graveyard
Speaker 3: and wanted to think Todd, Vil, Donna, and Athanasias for
Speaker 3: joining us on this episode of Trillions.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having us, agains for having us.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the toyslers, Thanks for listening to Trillions until
Speaker 3: next time. You can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal,
Speaker 3: Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you'd
Speaker 3: like to listen. We'd love to hear from you. We're
Speaker 3: on Twitter, I'm at Joel Webber Show.
Speaker 1: He's at Eric Baultnis.
Speaker 3: This episode of Trillions was produced by Magnus and Rickson.
Speaker 3: Bye