Speaker 1: Welcome on Trillians. I'm Joel Weber and I'm Eric bel Chernis. Eric.
Speaker 1: We're halfway through the year and it's time for a
Speaker 1: halftime report, the first you know what we're doing today? Okay,
Speaker 1: half the report podcasts, and we brought some people to join.
Speaker 1: One of them is a regular, Todd Todd rosen Bluth,
Speaker 1: who if people anyone listening who's in THETF industry knows
Speaker 1: this guy very well and knows some of his great
Speaker 1: work both for cf R A and on Twitter, which
Speaker 1: he uh coming like a recurring character. I like it, right,
Speaker 1: and and here he is again. Yeah, he's kind of
Speaker 1: like Tom Hanks on Family Ties. You know how he
Speaker 1: came in once in a while, is the Yes, that
Speaker 1: is exactly pretty good reference. Right. Yeah. We also have
Speaker 1: another character who is also a frequent guest, Sarah Ponzac
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg News also has a podcast of our own,
Speaker 1: now hosting a podcast called Welcomes Up Channel's Plague. So
Speaker 1: what we want to do is talk to Todd and
Speaker 1: Sarah about a couple observations from the first half of
Speaker 1: the year, and maybe even a couple I don't know
Speaker 1: of corystal Ball style predictions exactly this weekend Brilliance twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen halftime report. Todd Sarah, thanks for joining on Trilliance
Speaker 1: observation number one big observation. Who wants it? Yeah, I'll start.
Speaker 1: So this has really been the year of fixed in
Speaker 1: comm ETFs. More than half of the net inflows have
Speaker 1: gone into fixed in comm ETFs this year. It's about
Speaker 1: of the overall et F pie. But what's quite compelling
Speaker 1: to us at t F A is a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One is the range of products that have gained interest.
Speaker 1: You've got high yield, you've got long term treasuries like
Speaker 1: t L T and I e F. You've got the
Speaker 1: ultra short products that were popular in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eighteen have stayed popular bill SHV along with the active
Speaker 1: ones like mint and jps T. And then the second
Speaker 1: part of this is again the range of products. So
Speaker 1: using Bloomberg datly earlier this week, I saw, you know,
Speaker 1: more than a hundred fixed in com ETFs have gathered
Speaker 1: over a hundred million dollars of net new money this year.
Speaker 1: So it's not just the big boys that are gathering assets,
Speaker 1: but we're seeing a range of products, both large and small,
Speaker 1: that are popular and that's a great sign for ETF adoption.
Speaker 1: Why what's happening, Well, you've got a couple of things happening.
Speaker 1: Many investors are expecting the Fed to not only have paused,
Speaker 1: but actually cut interest rates. We had see afraid don't
Speaker 1: think that's going to be happening as aggressively as the
Speaker 1: broader market does. But you have investors that are willing
Speaker 1: to take on risk in order to get the yield.
Speaker 1: We've seen credit the fault risk be relatively low. And
Speaker 1: then you've got folks that don't believe that aren't willing
Speaker 1: to hide under the mattresses, uh the way they did
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen. And so both both camps
Speaker 1: are winning out again, a sign that e t F
Speaker 1: s are held, not often just traded. I'll jump in
Speaker 1: on this because the love for fixed income was part
Speaker 1: of one of my observations. To put a number on it.
Speaker 1: We've seen about seventy billion dollars go into fixed income
Speaker 1: so far in the first half, and that's the most
Speaker 1: for any half ever, So that gives you an idea.
Speaker 1: And now the amount of assets under management across fixed
Speaker 1: income products is now at an all time high, so
Speaker 1: around seven hundred and fifty billion dollars, and as Todd said,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. You see love for short term products, you
Speaker 1: see love for long term products, even in the belly
Speaker 1: of the curve. And it just goes to show that
Speaker 1: at this point in time, yes, a lot of people
Speaker 1: do believe that interest rates will be lower for longer,
Speaker 1: but it's still not set in stone. And I'll jump
Speaker 1: in here too with a couple of comments. Fixed income
Speaker 1: relative to itself, these et f s are definitely it's
Speaker 1: a banner year their own record to have their most
Speaker 1: flows ever. But when you use it relative to US equities,
Speaker 1: I find sometimes that numbers are touch distorted because of
Speaker 1: the January outflows that were a result of tax loss harvesting.
Speaker 1: If you take those away, it's not quite as drum attic.
Speaker 1: But that said, it is dramatic and it's worth pointing out.
Speaker 1: What's also interesting is active fixed income mutual funds have
Speaker 1: also been hauling in the cash. I think they could
Speaker 1: be right around the seventy billion mark based on the
Speaker 1: numbers we have so far extrapolating into June, so that
Speaker 1: would be a banner year all around for fixed income
Speaker 1: and the idea that it's across the curve is also interesting.
Speaker 1: Normally it was all ultra short and short. Some years
Speaker 1: it's all long term, some years it's high yield. It
Speaker 1: this the diversity is interesting. Geo VT is a ticker
Speaker 1: that to me represents this year. Geo VT is the
Speaker 1: I Shares Treasury et F which invest in all treasuries
Speaker 1: across the curve right from A to Z, and that
Speaker 1: is taking in four point six billion. It's uh. I
Speaker 1: think it's just squeeze into the top ten of inflows
Speaker 1: and it's not that big, so that one's punching way
Speaker 1: above its weight. And to me, that's representative of this year.
Speaker 1: If I had to pick a sort of poster child
Speaker 1: for this year and flows, it would probably geo VT.
Speaker 1: And what do we think the second half of the
Speaker 1: gear is gonna look like for fixed income? We're getting
Speaker 1: to the predictions already on it. So we think that
Speaker 1: we think money is going to continue to pour in,
Speaker 1: so even if the FED does not, So we don't
Speaker 1: believe that the FED is going to be conversation ultimately
Speaker 1: is about the FED. Well, it's it's about the FED,
Speaker 1: and it's also about investors using e t f s uh,
Speaker 1: and fixing comm ETFs from more of a strategic perspective.
Speaker 1: So you do see a tactical shift based on what's
Speaker 1: going to happen with the FED and the dot plots
Speaker 1: and things to that effect. But you are seeing some
Speaker 1: of these low cost core products continue to gather assets
Speaker 1: regardless of what's going on with the yield curve. And
Speaker 1: so we think we're seeing products like A G, G
Speaker 1: and B and D from ice Shares in Vanguard respectively,
Speaker 1: among other products that are just increasingly being used as
Speaker 1: a replacement in the institutional marketplace and being being a
Speaker 1: replacement for some mutual funds or for individual bonds as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, and all of these are products that have
Speaker 1: been around for a little bit in fixed income space.
Speaker 1: Is there any is there any new products that have
Speaker 1: been kind of a shocker or a surprise for you? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean when the fixed incomes. Yeah, Well, we're seeing
Speaker 1: more and more of these ultra short active products that
Speaker 1: gained some traction in two thousand eighteen that likely we're
Speaker 1: gonna be just parking money and I think we expected
Speaker 1: that and others did as well, and we've seen investors
Speaker 1: continue to move into those products. So Wisdom Tree has
Speaker 1: a floating rate UH treasury oriented product that that skyrocketed
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eighteen. Us f R has really
Speaker 1: somebody say floating rate. Yeah, but you know what, it's
Speaker 1: continued to pour in money. And we've seen JPST from
Speaker 1: JP Morgan other products. These are relatively new products, these
Speaker 1: are not three years old, and yet they're gathering significant assets.
Speaker 1: And the fact of the matter is, yes, a lot
Speaker 1: of this has to do with where interest rates are going,
Speaker 1: but it also has to do with where we are
Speaker 1: in the economic cycle and where we are in the
Speaker 1: market cycle, because as Todd mentioned, people also use these strategically.
Speaker 1: So people now, if they truly believe that we are
Speaker 1: towards the end of the economic cycle, which pretty much
Speaker 1: is consensus at this point in time, you could say,
Speaker 1: although there's people who don't believe in the economic cycle either,
Speaker 1: I think it will go on forever. This this time
Speaker 1: is different. This time is different, but still people are
Speaker 1: going to these products to use as a hedge. So yes,
Speaker 1: positioning regarding interest rates, but also just a strategic hedge.
Speaker 1: And if the FED is accommodative as they have been,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be good for all all of this. But
Speaker 1: if they do get hawkish suddenly and people start freaking out,
Speaker 1: it's going to as as everybody said, you will see
Speaker 1: flows two different products, but it probably will take down
Speaker 1: the overall number in my opinion. So the seventy billion
Speaker 1: we saw to me could double to one forty if
Speaker 1: the Feds, you know, relaxed accommodative. If the Fed turns
Speaker 1: hawk ish, I could see that struggling, maybe ending up
Speaker 1: ending up the year a hundred as people as the
Speaker 1: outflows from t LT and those guys maybe get offset
Speaker 1: by the inflows to the short duration stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: who's another big observation I can come in. It kind
Speaker 1: of ties in with the whole fixed income bent because
Speaker 1: even if you look at equity flows so far this year,
Speaker 1: where we have seen the focus is unbelievably defensive if
Speaker 1: you look on a sector level, and then also if
Speaker 1: you look at factors as well. So to give you
Speaker 1: an idea, the top sectors flow wise so far this
Speaker 1: year our real estate, communications, utilities, and consumer stables. Now communications,
Speaker 1: yes it holds some of those bang names, but also
Speaker 1: those dividend yielding telecom names as well. Every other sector
Speaker 1: has seen outflows. So it's pretty amazing that there is
Speaker 1: just a unison want for defense. And then on the
Speaker 1: smart beta side, we have just seen massive flows into
Speaker 1: low volatility funds. It's like the first half is the
Speaker 1: first half year of the low volatility funds because so
Speaker 1: far they've taken in more than eleven billion dollars. It's
Speaker 1: the most for any half going back to I believe.
Speaker 1: So it just shows you that on the equity side
Speaker 1: where we are seeing flows is the defensive side. And
Speaker 1: to I'm in on that. Two things on that just
Speaker 1: to first of all, low volatility ETFs are the most
Speaker 1: sellable thing ever created. What person who's like sixty doesn't
Speaker 1: want like the market with like a smoother ride. It's
Speaker 1: like you could sell the correct Yeah, it's like diet coke, right,
Speaker 1: It's like zero calorie. It's such a sellable thing. So
Speaker 1: there's an evergreen nature to low vall sweeping the world.
Speaker 1: The other thing was on those sectors though, I will
Speaker 1: say that the real estate to me is also maybe
Speaker 1: FED related as well. And yeah, so you get this
Speaker 1: because at the beginning of the year, when the FED
Speaker 1: got dovish around January fourth ish, right at the beginning,
Speaker 1: we saw this thirst for yield trade comeback, whether that
Speaker 1: be those sectors, the fixed income ETFs UH, junk bond ETFs,
Speaker 1: inflows UH, and that was kind of dying. We actually
Speaker 1: wrote a note in late about how the thirst for
Speaker 1: yield trade was possibly over um and then boom, it
Speaker 1: came right back. Even if you look in smart beta,
Speaker 1: so low ball is your number one, but below that
Speaker 1: is multi factor, so diversification at its best. And then
Speaker 1: it's dividend yields. So these dividend e t f s.
Speaker 1: And that's just another case to be made that when
Speaker 1: you have really low interest rates, you have a ten
Speaker 1: year two percent or below, people want yield and if
Speaker 1: you can go to the equity market, still take a
Speaker 1: little bit of risk, but be guaranteed a payout, that's
Speaker 1: clearly attractive at this point in time. What I think
Speaker 1: is also interesting is you cited this is strong since
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen. What that means also is two thousand
Speaker 1: sixteen was a great year for the first half for
Speaker 1: low volatility ETFs. But what was happening in two thousand
Speaker 1: the first half two thousand and sixteen is the broader
Speaker 1: market and the financial press outside of Bloomberg was freaking
Speaker 1: out that there was too much money going into low
Speaker 1: folatility ets they were actually driving the overall market, which
Speaker 1: is of course absurd given how small these e t
Speaker 1: F products are. Three fast forward three years, we're seeing
Speaker 1: the money going into it, and people are now applauding
Speaker 1: e t F investors for taking more of a lower
Speaker 1: risk approach, even though we're up seventeen percent in the
Speaker 1: broader market. That's a sign of some maturity that's out there.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also just a sign that investors
Speaker 1: are willing to wanting to have their cake and needed too.
Speaker 1: So you still want to be part of the marketplace
Speaker 1: and be up, but be down less. And and these
Speaker 1: products held up quite well in May, you know, when
Speaker 1: the market became much more volatile. I will point out
Speaker 1: though that one of the most popular low volatility funds
Speaker 1: us m V. Eric and I were talking about this
Speaker 1: the other day because actually outperformed the SMP this year.
Speaker 1: So when you think of low vall, you think of safety.
Speaker 1: You're tracking the market, but maybe you get a little
Speaker 1: bit less of a return. This year, you're actually getting
Speaker 1: more than the SPRED So it's pretty amazing. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's got a heavy weighting still relatively high weighting, and
Speaker 1: technology for a defensive portfolio because it reduces the risk
Speaker 1: within each of those sectors. So you do have exposure
Speaker 1: to some of the growthier sectors, just in a more
Speaker 1: defensive way, so companies like MasterCard instead of Apple, for example,
Speaker 1: within technology. And but just to go back to the
Speaker 1: craze of where low Ball took in like forty billion
Speaker 1: or something. Um, don't quote me on that. It's it
Speaker 1: was a lot, uh, you know, relative to its size
Speaker 1: that year, they were outperformed by eight nine. This year
Speaker 1: it's two. So it's interesting that they've taken in so
Speaker 1: much money despite not not crushing it per se. So
Speaker 1: to me, this is more about the psychology of hey,
Speaker 1: we're late in the market. How long can the FED
Speaker 1: keep the party going. It's like the party feels like
Speaker 1: it's four in the morning now, and I know the
Speaker 1: FED just brought some new beer, but it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: I gotta get some sleep. This thing is gonna this
Speaker 1: thing is gonna bust up soon. So I think there's
Speaker 1: a general defensiveness despite the returns to talk about your
Speaker 1: rave days, is that what you're trying to say, The
Speaker 1: late nineties. Oh yeah, So this defensive posturing, though, how
Speaker 1: much your investors missing out on? What they what we've
Speaker 1: seen so far this year, So it's pretty amazing because
Speaker 1: you look at the SMP five and the SMP is
Speaker 1: up sevent or so we just recently hit new highs. However,
Speaker 1: much of that has been driven at least in the
Speaker 1: back half of the half, So I guess the second
Speaker 1: quarter of the year you would say, has been driven
Speaker 1: by gines and defensive sectors. So by positioning in these areas,
Speaker 1: they're actually don't seem to be missing out on all
Speaker 1: that much. Because if you look at since May, and
Speaker 1: May was when everything related to trade started to fall
Speaker 1: apart a bit, we saw a little bit of a
Speaker 1: pullback since then, where the outperformance really has been is
Speaker 1: in utilities, is in real state, is actually in consumer staples.
Speaker 1: So by positioning in these places that you would think
Speaker 1: maybe you're not going to get that much of a
Speaker 1: return on the upside, but you get protection on the downside,
Speaker 1: we're actually seeing participation in the upside as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and with utilities and real estate in particular, I will
Speaker 1: leave consumer stables to the side for this. They are defensive,
Speaker 1: They offer the yield, but these are also US centric
Speaker 1: place so we've had the trade fears that have been
Speaker 1: going on pretty much all of the first half of
Speaker 1: the year. The easiest way to hide from that is
Speaker 1: just to stay as local as possible, and you're local
Speaker 1: utility or your assignment property. You're not getting the same
Speaker 1: international exposure that you would within technology, which was has
Speaker 1: been a strong performer, but oviously has been much more
Speaker 1: volatile in the last couple of months. So which sectors
Speaker 1: have been the biggest losers from an outflow protective well,
Speaker 1: from an outflow perspective, the worst our financials, energy and materials.
Speaker 1: So that is just a clear cyclical play. I mean,
Speaker 1: you want to look at the areas that are tied
Speaker 1: in with the economy vs. Are them, and it shows
Speaker 1: you that E t F investors are a little bit
Speaker 1: worried at the moment. They don't want to be anywhere
Speaker 1: near these three because we've seen some pretty sizable outflows
Speaker 1: in those areas as well. Okay, Eric, do you have
Speaker 1: an observation from the first half. I do, uh, and
Speaker 1: I'll go a different track. We just did flows. I
Speaker 1: think we covered a lot. Let's go to launches we'd
Speaker 1: like to see what's launching. It gives us a flavor
Speaker 1: of what's going on in the ETS space. There was
Speaker 1: more launches than I thought, hundred and twenty nine this year.
Speaker 1: That puts us on track for what to six the
Speaker 1: ish that would about about tie the record for annual launches.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised by this, given how rough the fee war
Speaker 1: has gotten and how some we saw some launches that
Speaker 1: came out at zero fee and negative fee. I thought
Speaker 1: this would put a little more fear into the bones
Speaker 1: of people who had e t F s lined up,
Speaker 1: But they're coming out like crazy still, probably because the
Speaker 1: e t F continue to take in most of the flows. Uh.
Speaker 1: Interesting on the top ten list, like so the new launches,
Speaker 1: which are the rookies of the year, Which ones are
Speaker 1: taking in the most cash? Barely any big names? I
Speaker 1: mean yes, the top two are E s G. That's
Speaker 1: also a shocker. Um I've been barished on E s G,
Speaker 1: but these two have overcome that. It's the I Shares
Speaker 1: and the Deutsche Bank, mostly because all that money came
Speaker 1: from one investor, a European pension funds, so institutions could
Speaker 1: be the way for E s G. Four that's interesting
Speaker 1: observation from those. Also two big thematic ETFs in the
Speaker 1: top ten, the global X cloud computing. There was already
Speaker 1: one of the market, but the global X came in
Speaker 1: and it's already got four hundred million. That is a
Speaker 1: shocker to me. It charges the sixty eight basis points
Speaker 1: and it shows you can still innovate and win because
Speaker 1: this one is much more targeted than Sky the first
Speaker 1: trust one, and it's doing a lot better this year.
Speaker 1: I think it's up six percent for the Sky flat
Speaker 1: because it goes after the smaller, more pure play companies.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. And then finally on the list, you've got Yolo,
Speaker 1: which is the marijuana et F. I was shocked it
Speaker 1: took people so long to do a me too potty
Speaker 1: t F. I was this is probably the most no
Speaker 1: brainer launch you could ever think of, because there's definitely
Speaker 1: enough interest. Mj is now a billion dollars ish, I
Speaker 1: would be not I wouldn't be surprised if we see
Speaker 1: a couple more potty tfs come out all out of
Speaker 1: the robotics craze of a year ago. Um, but as
Speaker 1: they keep coming out, they're gonna law of diminishing returns
Speaker 1: will kick in, but the tickers should be really something.
Speaker 1: I'm anticipating some crazy tickers in that space. But anyway,
Speaker 1: on the flip side, there's been ninety one closures. That's
Speaker 1: also shockingly high. If you extrapolate that, you get to
Speaker 1: one eight and one eighty would crush the record. I
Speaker 1: think the old records about a hundred and twenty five.
Speaker 1: So this tells me that yes, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: innovation and a lot of excitement, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of Darwinism going on, and you have an industry I
Speaker 1: think that's maturing. That's my takeaway on that. Well, you've
Speaker 1: got two camps in that you you kind of glossed
Speaker 1: for the cheap products that have come out this year,
Speaker 1: and for understandable reasons, because they haven't been gathering as
Speaker 1: much assets the ultra cheap or free products. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: come back to that one later on, but thematic has
Speaker 1: really been the way of investing for launching new products
Speaker 1: because you can be differentiated in how you interpret the
Speaker 1: themes we now have. I think now our third and
Speaker 1: our fourth related gaming et F will probably see ten
Speaker 1: at some point because that's such a broad open area.
Speaker 1: I triggered myself on this. I just don't get it.
Speaker 1: But what I do get. But but you're a fan
Speaker 1: of the five quality large cap smart Beta fund, I
Speaker 1: am because it's the in house expertise that puts me
Speaker 1: to sleep. I will, I will blow your mind right
Speaker 1: now if you don't get the gaming thing. I have
Speaker 1: a younger brother, actually he was a professional gamer. Well
Speaker 1: now he's retired, but believable, and this is a this
Speaker 1: is a thing. I'm sure, this is I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: we now again we have now more gaming related et
Speaker 1: s out there than home building related e t f s.
Speaker 1: What I just think is interesting is that we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of these innovations that are out there. I
Speaker 1: shares his launched products in the thematic and trend oriented space.
Speaker 1: We've seen State Street launch it. We're seeing some of
Speaker 1: the bigger boys come in, and that's gonna against spur
Speaker 1: additional innovation and adoption because you've got to find where
Speaker 1: the puck is going to uh to skate to it
Speaker 1: and and these smaller firms are really doing a good
Speaker 1: job of launching these products. In my view, the real
Speaker 1: reason thematics are are becoming big business is the modern
Speaker 1: portfolio is real low cost core. Right, you know, you've
Speaker 1: got this building block of like a baby five bits
Speaker 1: for the whole thing, International, Developed, emerging markets, US equity bonds.
Speaker 1: Then to have fun on the outside, to try for
Speaker 1: a little outfit, you could do a factor factor e
Speaker 1: T F. You could do a single country or thematics
Speaker 1: and I think thematics again for advisors, are easy to explain.
Speaker 1: You can buy into the story and then you put
Speaker 1: them on top. That's why we like the hardcore thematic
Speaker 1: ones because we're assuming you're using it as a little
Speaker 1: hot sauce on top of the portfolio, so we say
Speaker 1: you might as well go all the way and try
Speaker 1: to really capture. So that's why that thematic capture score
Speaker 1: that we create I think is crucial and hopefully you know,
Speaker 1: helps people navigating because now a lot of these categories
Speaker 1: have three or four e T s to pick from. Robotics, cybersecurity,
Speaker 1: cloud computing, you name it. But what the other part
Speaker 1: of that from an asset management perspective is you can
Speaker 1: charge forty five, fifty sixty eight basis points for these
Speaker 1: products and still be able to gather assets as opposed
Speaker 1: to even though we've seen competition the floor is considerably
Speaker 1: higher for these products overall, whereas I Shares has three
Speaker 1: and four and five basis point products. It's a lot
Speaker 1: harder to become profitable if you're a public company that way.
Speaker 1: That's true, and that gets us to the shiny object
Speaker 1: stuff we've talked about. If you're hardcore and concentrated, you
Speaker 1: have the shiny object potential because you're in smaller companies.
Speaker 1: And when some of these products hit, they hit big.
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't perform by two or three percentage points,
Speaker 1: they are performed by twenty percentage points, so nobody cares
Speaker 1: that it charges sixty And that's the beauty of a
Speaker 1: thematic et F from an issuer standpoint and from the
Speaker 1: investor that said, the problem with thematic et f s
Speaker 1: if they are concentrated is you really have to buy
Speaker 1: into the story because you will see volatility. Like if
Speaker 1: you're into robotics, are you really into robotics? Are you
Speaker 1: into performance chasing? How many people can stomach when those
Speaker 1: things have a rough run because say, hi, beta stocks
Speaker 1: are selling off currently you have to buy and solar
Speaker 1: energy is happening with that this year right Look at
Speaker 1: tannis Yere, one of the best performing ets out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you're gonna swing for the fences, you better
Speaker 1: make contact because you're gonna you're gonna strike out quite
Speaker 1: a lot. So there is a catch twenty two in
Speaker 1: going for the goal with thematic ETFs. You need a
Speaker 1: stomach for it. But it probably makes more sense to
Speaker 1: go and pure and capture the industry because a lot
Speaker 1: of those stocks typically when they go pure, they're not
Speaker 1: in other big indexes, so you're getting unique exposure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, Eric talked about from a flows perspective,
Speaker 1: the E s G products and they got the money
Speaker 1: from institutional investors, but US s G, which is that
Speaker 1: was the cheapest of those two products. I believe that
Speaker 1: s USL cut the fee as well, but ten basis
Speaker 1: points for E s G exposure that's broadly diversified across
Speaker 1: the sectors. E s G has been off on the
Speaker 1: sidelines in part because they charge a premium fee. If
Speaker 1: you're going to compete on price for an E s
Speaker 1: G product, you're likely to get further adoption. And I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna see that throughout the year. And let
Speaker 1: me bring up one other new launch that this is
Speaker 1: the e t F to watch b b U S.
Speaker 1: Todd and I have a bet on this one and
Speaker 1: how fast it will grow. It's only thirty million now,
Speaker 1: but JP Morgan launched this thing, and if yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it could grow quickly. And here's this is fascinating.
Speaker 1: B b US is literally a straight knockoff of the
Speaker 1: SMP five hundred. Have you ever seen coming to America
Speaker 1: McDonald's versus McDowell's. This is McDowell's of the SMP. It's
Speaker 1: so close that they literally have the same, like ten
Speaker 1: point performance through the first core or the stocks are
Speaker 1: almost the same. I mean, there's almost no overlap. Why
Speaker 1: are they doing that? Why would they do that? The
Speaker 1: Golden arcs, the Golden arcs, the Golden arches right. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if you look, JP Morgan is the largest owner of SPY.
Speaker 1: They own something like I want to say, twenty billion
Speaker 1: dollars or the v S p Y. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of their advisor business. It's very likely some of that
Speaker 1: is going to be converted over to b b U S.
Speaker 1: And this is this b y O a bring your
Speaker 1: own assets. Thing we talk about is more and more
Speaker 1: issuers that hold SPY and i VV these companies that
Speaker 1: have large advisor networks. If they launched their own McDowell's
Speaker 1: versions of these, you could see a big ceiling on
Speaker 1: the black Rock Vanguard juggernaut. I'm not sure will happen widespread,
Speaker 1: but if b bus starts to take off and everybody
Speaker 1: accepts it as not like having a huge conflict of interest,
Speaker 1: which I don't think it does because it's cheaper, does
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's not like you're putting your clients
Speaker 1: into something more expensive or different. Um, but b b
Speaker 1: us is want to watch this could be a ten
Speaker 1: billion dollar et F in a couple of years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the JP Morgan is launching or expanding a
Speaker 1: retail oriented program for investments later on the summer. I
Speaker 1: forgot the exact date, and that's the time period. You know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have an asset allocation strategy that has b
Speaker 1: bus as as the core for the US. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have a your product b b EU, which is out
Speaker 1: there from them. They've got Canada, they've got Japan. You
Speaker 1: could build an asset allocation strategy using JP Morgan's owned products,
Speaker 1: and it's highly likely that JP Morgan is the one
Speaker 1: who's going to make that available for their client, and
Speaker 1: if I didn't mention b bus charges two basis points,
Speaker 1: that's just under VOO and IBV cheapest, cheapest like the
Speaker 1: Big the Big Mick, Okay, Sarah, any other observations. So
Speaker 1: I have one more observation that I just find really
Speaker 1: strange or not strange, but very unexpected. And two reporters
Speaker 1: that were on the new side, Rachel Evans and build
Speaker 1: on a hazrec found that if you look at the
Speaker 1: ten top performing e t s this year, eight of
Speaker 1: the ten of them have less than a hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars in assets. So it goes to show you you
Speaker 1: don't have to be big to be great. Now, Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of these funds are leveraged three times leveraged
Speaker 1: products you could imagine, but one of them is are
Speaker 1: you s L So that's a direction daily Russiable three
Speaker 1: times shares fund. When a lot of people think about
Speaker 1: investing outside of the US, you hear about India a lot,
Speaker 1: of course, you hear about China, emerging markets, Europe. You
Speaker 1: don't hear about Russia too often. But there is this
Speaker 1: fundamentally good, strong economic story for Russia, and the fund
Speaker 1: is up or more this year, so pretty amazing and
Speaker 1: I think it's something people wouldn't really expect. That reminds
Speaker 1: me of last episode where we had Sylvia Jablonsky on
Speaker 1: maker of the three x E t F. So just
Speaker 1: a warning, these are power tools daily usage. Uh, Sarah
Speaker 1: just did a great job promoting the return. But let's
Speaker 1: just they're not supposed to hold on to it for
Speaker 1: the whole ser second series months. They could be zero.
Speaker 1: But Todd, how's yours? There's a good reason that this
Speaker 1: product has little assets. Three times leveraged a country that
Speaker 1: the United States is not on good terms with stuff.
Speaker 1: He doesn't like it. He could serve him a Davis
Speaker 1: large cap and he's happy. Everyone should go to take back. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if it's half time, we got to talk about
Speaker 1: the second half? What are you guys watching? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the exciting thing to us is that in the
Speaker 1: first half we didn't touch on it, but in the
Speaker 1: first half of the year we've got the regulatory approval
Speaker 1: for non transparent et f s. I think you guys
Speaker 1: may have covered that beforehand on the show. Uh. These
Speaker 1: are e t fs that will be disclosed as infrequently
Speaker 1: of the holding's perspective as mutual funds, and there's a
Speaker 1: number of big boy asset managers that are lining up
Speaker 1: to work with Presidian that have have a license agreement.
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of dozen firms out there
Speaker 1: that are doing this them that have not offered ETFs
Speaker 1: to begin with, and I think that's going to cause
Speaker 1: not you know, not only new products to launches, as
Speaker 1: Eric touched on of breaking the record, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: see some of these firms dip their toe in or
Speaker 1: more aggressively move into the e t F market. From
Speaker 1: like American Century that has already e t f s
Speaker 1: today is likely to expand their lineup we have from
Speaker 1: like American Funds, it doesn't have anything to do that.
Speaker 1: And so I know, the easy argument is nobody wants
Speaker 1: these products, but people want mutual funds. Easy it though,
Speaker 1: it's the correct argument. I mean, look, I feel I
Speaker 1: don't want to be barrassed on these because I'm willing
Speaker 1: to be open minded in surprise. But here's the question
Speaker 1: to ask you, Look, some of these a lot of
Speaker 1: these firms you just mentioned already have transparent active ETFs
Speaker 1: and nobody's buying them, and obviously they are mutual funds
Speaker 1: are seeing outflows a lot of them. So it's like
Speaker 1: the metaphor I uses, You've just made this incredibly awesome, new,
Speaker 1: state of the art dog food ball, but the dog
Speaker 1: doesn't want the food in it. The dog has to
Speaker 1: want the food in the bowl. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: who's gonna want it in the part of why that
Speaker 1: the issue is is that the firms are not committing
Speaker 1: to it, so that many of these firms that have
Speaker 1: a small et F presence within a larger asset management
Speaker 1: company are not putting the resources, the marketing, the distribution
Speaker 1: teams to support those efforts. If they're can work directly
Speaker 1: connected with the mutual funds UH and the people who
Speaker 1: are advocating and educating about those mutual funds. I really
Speaker 1: think you're gonna see greater adoption that's out there. And
Speaker 1: there's a whole host of advisors that would be very
Speaker 1: happy to buy an American funds e t F because
Speaker 1: they love American funds. There just isn't an ETF available
Speaker 1: for for them. That's the advisor I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: think is A is A I don't think that demand
Speaker 1: is interesting to me. The distribution, the relationships, the hey,
Speaker 1: this is better than the old thing. I get that,
Speaker 1: but grassroots, organic demand from that sort of classic et
Speaker 1: F investor, I'm not sure. The other question is could
Speaker 1: they convert their mutual funds to this or will they
Speaker 1: move money over? And I just don't think some of
Speaker 1: these firms have the stomach to move something from a
Speaker 1: higher revenue source to a lower revenue source. You know,
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. I just I see these struggling
Speaker 1: over time, Sarah, I will go the complete opposite direction.
Speaker 1: And something that's amazed me all year long has been
Speaker 1: the I p o E t F. Because it feels
Speaker 1: like everyone hears names like Uber, you hear names like Lift,
Speaker 1: which didn't have the best I p s, and people
Speaker 1: think that it's been a rocky start, but it really
Speaker 1: has it. I mean I p o s are off
Speaker 1: to an unbelievable year. The I p o E t
Speaker 1: F up more than thirty and I think that this
Speaker 1: is really going to be a very hot area going forwards.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to see more launches, and if the environment
Speaker 1: that we have seen so far this year continues, where
Speaker 1: people are actually willing to really reach for risk and
Speaker 1: get on on these funds, we could see more well
Speaker 1: from a performance standpoint, they're likely to be driven more
Speaker 1: because some of these companies will have to have to
Speaker 1: wait a little bit of time before they get added
Speaker 1: to the SMPI index or other indexes that have much
Speaker 1: more money behind it. And so you'll it's still surprising
Speaker 1: that there's one kind of a second one from First
Speaker 1: Trust that's an i p o E t F given
Speaker 1: the range of products that are at, the new stocks
Speaker 1: that are out there, and the and demand four I
Speaker 1: p o s. So I think we're gonna see I
Speaker 1: think we should see more of them and again surprising
Speaker 1: I p s that still could happen in the second
Speaker 1: half of the year. We work among them fp X
Speaker 1: to me, at these they're underrated. Um, they hold these
Speaker 1: stocks them anywhere else. Yeah, they hold them for the
Speaker 1: two or three I call catch and release. You know,
Speaker 1: they grab the top releases really long. It's four years
Speaker 1: for for that one, and you only need to be
Speaker 1: right a couple of times because like you only need
Speaker 1: a couple of facebooks to totally make up for the deads.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that that et F. Look at the performance
Speaker 1: of FPX over the past fifteen years, unbelievable. My prediction
Speaker 1: is that US equity e t f s are going
Speaker 1: to regain control and knock out this fixed income narrative
Speaker 1: and and lead the year in flows by the end
Speaker 1: of the year. And I'll tell you why. It's it
Speaker 1: is bold. Wait, that's something that's sent of the overall
Speaker 1: et F pie is gonna continue to do that. It's
Speaker 1: been it's against like your last twenty tweets, it's against
Speaker 1: the whole narrative we've been hearing now is it's fixed
Speaker 1: income fixed and come US equity sucks. I just don't
Speaker 1: see it happening. Here's what I I just think Trump's
Speaker 1: desire to use the stock market as a campaign item
Speaker 1: a big one, is going to make him make the
Speaker 1: trade deal happen. It's going to make him sort of
Speaker 1: coerce the FED to keep right slow. And that's going
Speaker 1: to get the trading crowd involved. Because if you look
Speaker 1: at flows, we've divided them from allocators buying whold ETFs
Speaker 1: to the ones that traders use. The ones that traders
Speaker 1: use have seen a negative outflows of fifteen billion this year.
Speaker 1: The allocators are doing their thing forty five. They're going
Speaker 1: to continue. But if the trading crowd comes back in
Speaker 1: and buys like the I w M s and the spies.
Speaker 1: That's what's missing from this year and a little bit
Speaker 1: from last year. If that crowd comes in hard, I
Speaker 1: think that's when you see US Equity E t F
Speaker 1: sort of regain that sort of um, you know, lead
Speaker 1: dog aspect that they're normally used to. But we'll it
Speaker 1: could go the other direction. That's elections in over a year.
Speaker 1: We still got plenty of time for him to make
Speaker 1: but he's gonna be seeing the debates and people talking
Speaker 1: trash and he's gonna I'm telling you this is just
Speaker 1: a complete theory by me, and that it also indicates
Speaker 1: that that the fete is an independent which is kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, blasphemy, But I'm just saying my thoughts. Todd.
Speaker 1: I I think there's no question that US Equity ETF
Speaker 1: are going to dominate in the second half of the year.
Speaker 1: I think what we saw thus far in June is
Speaker 1: that's been UH investors have gravitated towards it. But when
Speaker 1: you're seventy of the overall marketplace, it's like saying you
Speaker 1: think Golden State is going to return to the finals,
Speaker 1: which they have done in the last three years. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I was rooting for them, and that's great. But
Speaker 1: the underdog that's out there, it's like perhaps picking the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia seventies six years a year ago and rooting for
Speaker 1: them is as some of them Michigan to lose the
Speaker 1: World Series. So we're taping this for everybody's purposes. We're
Speaker 1: taping this on the eve of what is the last
Speaker 1: game of the College World Series and Michigan. I have
Speaker 1: to admit that I'm Sarah and I are both proud
Speaker 1: in Michigan alums. It's Michigan had a baseball team. He
Speaker 1: went a few months ago. I wasn't paying attention to it,
Speaker 1: but I'll happily jump on that bandwagon. Of course. Yes,
Speaker 1: but they don't play in June. It ends the season's over.
Speaker 1: These guys are spoiled rotten. They've got baseball now on
Speaker 1: top of basketball and football. I got Runners is like
Speaker 1: and everything is including like field hockey. That's me complaining
Speaker 1: you guys. You guys are spoiled rotten. Go Blue Todd, Sarah,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us, and Trillion, thanks for having it,
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Thanks for listening to trillions. Until next time,
Speaker 1: you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever else you like to listen.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. We're on Twitter, I'm
Speaker 1: at Joel Webber Show, He's at Eric ball Tunis. You
Speaker 1: can get Todd at Todd c f r A and
Speaker 1: Sarah at Sarah Ponzack. Trillions is produced by Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 1: Princessica Levie is the head for Bloomberg podcast Tit