Speaker 1: Walkner Chollion's I'm Joe Webbert and I'm Eric Belchernas. Eric,
Speaker 1: you do some conferences. You recently went to the conference
Speaker 1: on Emerging Trends in Asset Management, and you seem to
Speaker 1: think you walked out of there as a really big deal.
Speaker 2: I walked out of there a lot smarter. A lot
Speaker 2: of times when I do a conference, I want a panel.
Speaker 2: I don't go for the whole thing. Yeah, but this
Speaker 2: one seems special. I got an email from the current
Speaker 2: director of Investment Management. It's their first conference. They had
Speaker 2: seen me do a book presentation about a year ago,
Speaker 2: and they were like, this guy'd be good to give
Speaker 2: some sort of, you know, alternative take on the ETF market.
Speaker 2: There were several people there, a lot of lawyers and
Speaker 2: a lot of people from the SEC.
Speaker 1: Several people like there are like five people there, and
Speaker 1: one of them happened to be Gary Ginsler, the head
Speaker 1: of the SEC.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he spoke. So that's why I went because I
Speaker 2: wanted to see him speaking some of other people. So
Speaker 2: I went and just stayed the whole time, and I
Speaker 2: was at the end, but I soaked up a lot
Speaker 2: and I wanted to sort of somehow get this onto
Speaker 2: the podcast, and I found the way to do that
Speaker 2: because I met Dalia Blass, who used to be the
Speaker 2: head of Investment Management at the SEC, and I got
Speaker 2: to meet her at dinner a little bit more and
Speaker 2: we expanded. I saw her on the panel and some
Speaker 2: of the things she was talking about our stuff we
Speaker 2: write about all the time. So I thought we could
Speaker 2: dive a little bit into what the SEC does some
Speaker 2: of the current topics that were brought up at this event,
Speaker 2: because this is the first one, and you know sc'
Speaker 2: is not usually this open, but they were pretty open.
Speaker 2: They're trying to, i guess, be a little more available
Speaker 2: to people and say exactly what they're doing. And I
Speaker 2: thought it was a good time to check in on
Speaker 2: all this. And she has a very interesting background and
Speaker 2: I had seen, you know, and heard of her obviously
Speaker 2: over the years, but finally got to meet her, and
Speaker 2: believe it or not, she accepted my invitation to join
Speaker 2: the podcast.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna speak with Dalia Blass, who is the
Speaker 1: former SEC Division of Investment Management head. After that, she
Speaker 1: went to Blackrock where she was head of external Affairs,
Speaker 1: and now she's a partner at Sullivan and cremwell this
Speaker 1: time on trillions. Dahlia Bluss, Dahlia, welcome to Trillions.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So how was Eric received within this conference that he
Speaker 1: seems to think everybody really cared about what came out
Speaker 1: of his mouth, How was it really, honestly truthfully?
Speaker 4: So, Eric had a really good presentation, aside from the
Speaker 4: fact like a lot of bar charts whatnot. Sorry Eric,
Speaker 4: I wasn't paying attention to those. But he explained some
Speaker 4: really complicated principles around ETFs and ETF investing in a
Speaker 4: way that really resonated, very very plain English, and was
Speaker 4: talking about the trends in the space that you know,
Speaker 4: we're really interesting. I think the most interesting trend you
Speaker 4: talked about, Eric is how much the AUM, the assets
Speaker 4: of the management for ETFs frankly have like doubled at
Speaker 4: least since the ETF fruls. So that made me happy
Speaker 4: to hear it that since you know, I was the
Speaker 4: director when we did the ETF rules. So great, you know,
Speaker 4: great stats and it was just really understandable, which was great.
Speaker 2: And one quick thing on that I found when Gary
Speaker 2: Genser spoke, he was going through several topics. He'd be
Speaker 2: like private equity, we're looking at this. We need to
Speaker 2: be careful about this. Then he'd be like, money market funds,
Speaker 2: we're looking at this, We're gonna be careful this. It
Speaker 2: seems like ETFs got a pretty much a pass. He
Speaker 2: basically said, you know, ETFs, look, they're great. They brought
Speaker 2: diversity and convenience to investors, and he kind of just
Speaker 2: went on, So I'll give you some credit for that.
Speaker 2: I guess the ETF rule maybe cleaned up all the
Speaker 2: things they were looking at, but it didn't seem like
Speaker 2: that was on his radar compared to the other things.
Speaker 4: I think it was a product lineup that was sort
Speaker 4: of like, this is working really well. It worked really
Speaker 4: well in March twenty twenty, thank you so much, let's
Speaker 4: move on to other areas. And it was heartening to
Speaker 4: hear that, quite frankly, because I think you would recall
Speaker 4: for years before twenty twenty, it was always that the
Speaker 4: where's the moment that ETFs will break? Or is the
Speaker 4: moment ETF's That was always the narrative, So it was
Speaker 4: it was really heartening to see that this is a
Speaker 4: product that actually was a pressure valve. In March twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think this was the one. March twenty
Speaker 2: twenty is when I think all the doubters, the some
Speaker 2: worry articles kind of were like, okay, they're good because
Speaker 2: you're right. There was especially fixed income ETFs. There was
Speaker 2: all this worry about it. And then when the FED
Speaker 2: stepped in to buy them, I think that really sealed
Speaker 2: the deal. It's like, well, the Fed's going to use them,
Speaker 2: they must be okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a sense of the ETFs we were
Speaker 4: helping in March twenty twenty. As I said, it was
Speaker 4: like a pressure valve release sort of, you know, mechanic
Speaker 4: if you will, And ETFs played that role really well
Speaker 4: and the government acknowledged that. So it was I agree
Speaker 4: with you in his speech. It was really interesting how
Speaker 4: he dealt with ETFs compared to the other pieces that
Speaker 4: he talked about.
Speaker 1: So you got to the sec September of twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: before times how much how much did you know about
Speaker 1: ETFs when you got there.
Speaker 3: So that was my.
Speaker 4: Third tour of duty because we speak military terms in
Speaker 4: the government, so believe it or not, I was the
Speaker 4: staff attorney that did the original ETF proposal in was
Speaker 4: it seven eight and it took a second try to
Speaker 4: get it to finals. So I've lived ETF, said the
Speaker 4: Commission since a very long time ago.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, she like tour of duty. I mean
Speaker 1: when you do that, is that is that for real?
Speaker 1: Is it like how we talk about it?
Speaker 4: It is it's your tour of duty in the government,
Speaker 4: even when you're in civilian service. So that was that
Speaker 4: was my third tour in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you got into ETS, I feel like if
Speaker 2: you got into ETS before twenty ten, especially two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, you're like an og kind of you know,
Speaker 2: you're not oog like you know, Bob Tole and those
Speaker 2: guys and Nate most but second level because the industry
Speaker 2: was only like four hundred billion back then. Again today's
Speaker 2: seven trillion.
Speaker 1: So when you first started to work on ETF stuff
Speaker 1: at the SEC were what were the concerns that you
Speaker 1: were wrestling with then?
Speaker 4: So you know, ETFs, as Eric mentioned, it was a
Speaker 4: growing space, but nothing nothing compared to where it was
Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen when we reproposed. A lot of it
Speaker 4: was still index. Some of the actives were starting the
Speaker 4: conversations around the non transparent, the veiled ETFs but there
Speaker 4: were none on the market at all. The questions there
Speaker 4: were more, and if you look at the old proposal,
Speaker 4: we tried to enshrine the index ETF versus active ETF.
Speaker 4: It was just simplistic, if you will, compared to where
Speaker 4: we ended up after a lot more experience with the
Speaker 4: product in the marketplace.
Speaker 2: Let's go into the nineteen forty Act a little bit.
Speaker 2: This is the main act that governs a lot of
Speaker 2: the fund's world, the nineteen forty Act. ETFs always needed
Speaker 2: an exception to the nineteen forty Act. And I guess
Speaker 2: can you just talk a little bit about how ETFs
Speaker 2: are structured. I think some people don't realize they're actually
Speaker 2: they are mutual funds to a degree, they just have
Speaker 2: this extra exemption.
Speaker 4: They're open ended funds. Right, So the act, if you will,
Speaker 4: has two pieces of the closed ends, the open ends,
Speaker 4: and the open ends. The feature there is it's redeemable,
Speaker 4: like I give you back my share, you give me
Speaker 4: back my money. Right, that redeeable and within a very
Speaker 4: short time period the statute of seven days.
Speaker 3: In reality it's like a day.
Speaker 4: The ETF exemptions, which again when you grow in the
Speaker 4: exemptive application process, and I think that was one of
Speaker 4: the issues when we did the proposal in eight and
Speaker 4: definitely when we did the rule making in twenty eighteen
Speaker 4: that ended up being the final exemptions over time change
Speaker 4: because the market evolves, So the ETF providers that had
Speaker 4: the original orders had vastly different orders than the ETF
Speaker 4: providers that had orders leading up to the final rule.
Speaker 4: So when you step back and you look at that,
Speaker 4: it's not equal marketplace. You know, even though like you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go out and buy an ETF, I'm
Speaker 4: buying an ETF that in name looks like any other ETF,
Speaker 4: but in principle could have, you know, vastly different things. So,
Speaker 4: you know, stepping back and just saying, like, what really
Speaker 4: is different about ETF appeared to a mutual fund, and
Speaker 4: what do I need to change? And this is where
Speaker 4: when we looked at it, we're like, ETF is a
Speaker 4: redeeable security. We don't need to give an exemption from that.
Speaker 4: So when you look at the final ETF rule, the
Speaker 4: exemptions actually are a lot fewer, a lot cleaner than
Speaker 4: when you look at any exemptive application that predated that rule.
Speaker 4: And that's the experience you have and that you can
Speaker 4: do when you're looking at a rule making, which you
Speaker 4: can't really do with an exemptive order. It's still like
Speaker 4: kind of bound by a lot of history behind it,
Speaker 4: if you will a little.
Speaker 1: Bit of history. We learned that SEC kind of helped
Speaker 1: create the ETF originally after the Black Monday Report. Do
Speaker 1: people in the SEC appreciate that, A is there any
Speaker 1: internal pride about creating this whole sort of new way
Speaker 1: of investing?
Speaker 4: So if you're talking about the spiders, which took quite
Speaker 4: a few more.
Speaker 1: And a half years, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: The SEC issued this huge telephone book size report that
Speaker 2: was a postmortive on the eighty seven crash, and in
Speaker 2: their talk to little bit about well, if there had
Speaker 2: been a market basking trading instrument that actually had physically
Speaker 2: backed securities instead of using the futures market in Chicago,
Speaker 2: this might have not happened.
Speaker 1: And AMX looked at that and we're like, we can
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean, so that's it's not you know,
Speaker 4: the SEC has actually played a role in innovation. If
Speaker 4: you look at interval funds by wave example, that was
Speaker 4: created by the Commission, it was also an SEC creation, right,
Speaker 4: So and that's that's a really important point, because that's
Speaker 4: the point sometimes we don't focus on We focus on
Speaker 4: the SEC being in the administrator of like the forty
Speaker 4: Act and the other securities laws. We focus on the
Speaker 4: SEC being the examiner for compliance. We focus on the
Speaker 4: SEC being the enforcer.
Speaker 1: That's the fun part.
Speaker 4: What we don't focus on and perhaps sometimes the SEC
Speaker 4: and I'm you know, I'm guilty of that, having been
Speaker 4: you know, inside the building for fourteen years. We don't
Speaker 4: sometimes focus on on the et the SEC's role in innovation,
Speaker 4: which which is really really important for a market p
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 1: So the ETF rule when it came about what was
Speaker 1: different about that on your third tour of duty than
Speaker 1: your previous ones and how did you why did you
Speaker 1: change your mind to get it to where it ended up.
Speaker 4: So you know that as the ETF rule, if you
Speaker 4: look at it compared to the one that was proposed
Speaker 4: in OAIT, you know, significantly different. Like just by way
Speaker 4: of one example, you don't have the index ETF versus
Speaker 4: the active ETF.
Speaker 3: You have the ETF.
Speaker 4: You don't have an idea that the ETF is is
Speaker 4: getting an exemption from being a redeeable security. It's acknowledged
Speaker 4: that it is redeeable security, it's an open end fund.
Speaker 4: So these were all things that came with lessons learned
Speaker 4: the Commission. The staff had had vastly more experienced by
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen compared to ten years earlier, and the product
Speaker 4: had grown by you know, leaps and bounds. So there
Speaker 4: that you know, the thinking had matured, the product had matured,
Speaker 4: and it continues to mature. So it's it's maybe perhaps
Speaker 4: not so good that it took ten years, But at
Speaker 4: the same time, I think the rule ended up where
Speaker 4: it is because of the more information and the more
Speaker 4: experience of staff and the Commission's had with the product.
Speaker 2: So let's switch to a topic that came up at
Speaker 2: the event. This is your panel, and it came up
Speaker 2: a couple times at the event, which was, Okay, you've
Speaker 2: got two companies, Blackrock, Vanguard, you could throw State Street
Speaker 2: in there. We'll call them the big three. They're getting bigger.
Speaker 2: They sort of more the center focus as it become
Speaker 2: like a political football because they own so much of
Speaker 2: these stocks. I think Vanguard owns about eight or nine percent,
Speaker 2: Blackrock owns about seven percent of almost every stock in America,
Speaker 2: and so the question is, like how do we deal
Speaker 2: with this because they're not getting any small They take
Speaker 2: in most of the money, so they're going to keep
Speaker 2: getting bigger. And this was a topic that was talked about,
Speaker 2: and then what was brought up was, well, the market
Speaker 2: is sort of working this out because they're going to
Speaker 2: decentralize voting and let their shareholders have a say. I guess,
Speaker 2: from your vantage point as having worked at Blackrock and
Speaker 2: the SEC, how do you see this playing out over
Speaker 2: the next ten years.
Speaker 4: That's a great question, and you're right. It was a
Speaker 4: topic in the i AM Emerging Trends conference that I
Speaker 4: think almost every single panel touched on, which even panels
Speaker 4: that didn't have that in their title, it seemed to
Speaker 4: be a topic everybody was interested in talking about. I mean, look,
Speaker 4: I mean the bottom line is you're here increasingly both
Speaker 4: policy makers and investors asking for changes in fund voting practices.
Speaker 4: This is not about like a big two or a
Speaker 4: Big three, or a Big four, or a Big five
Speaker 4: or a big six. It's about index funds and how
Speaker 4: they're managing their voting. And you know, some policy makers
Speaker 4: have raised questions about the increasing share of index fund
Speaker 4: voting and how those shares are being cast. And you
Speaker 4: have investors today, institutional investors who want just as they
Speaker 4: choose how their investments are being deployed into the market,
Speaker 4: they also want to say and how their shares are
Speaker 4: being voted in the market. So when you have that
Speaker 4: and not getting into merits or demerits of any around that,
Speaker 4: you look at solutions, because solutions are already starting to come about.
Speaker 4: You have solutions, I think our characterize in three buckets.
Speaker 4: You have sort of restrictive voting solutions which would put
Speaker 4: sort of parameters around what index fund managers would or
Speaker 4: would not do. You have more transparency solutions which are
Speaker 4: very limiting, and then you have market based solutions, which
Speaker 4: I in my opinion at least, I think the market
Speaker 4: based solutions are the ones that have greater promise. And
Speaker 4: if we can sort of allow them to evolve and
Speaker 4: the regulators step in a place of helping the conversations
Speaker 4: and removing any regulatory barriers, I think you can get
Speaker 4: a movement in fund voting that would actually read in
Speaker 4: your to the benefit of all investors.
Speaker 2: And so to be let's talk about the rules currently
Speaker 2: in place. A fund cannot own more than ten percent
Speaker 2: of company. I think that's the rule in the forty Act,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't say anything. But a fun complex is
Speaker 2: the forty Act came out when typically a fund was
Speaker 2: all the complex had. Now now in the past, you
Speaker 2: know whatever, eighty years the fund multiplied and now you
Speaker 2: have they have three four hundred funds. So there's no rule.
Speaker 1: And so therefore.
Speaker 2: Blackrock and Vanguard could really get bigger own more than
Speaker 2: ten percent. But that's okay because it's really thirty to
Speaker 2: fifty million investors, individual investors' money if they decentralize, versus
Speaker 2: people thinking that And this comes up all the time
Speaker 2: on Twitter, like it looks like Blackrock and Vanguard have
Speaker 2: like so much power and it's their money, but it's
Speaker 2: really a bunch of it's millions of individual investors.
Speaker 4: So a couple of things, and number one, the restrictions
Speaker 4: on ownership. There is like a myriad of things that
Speaker 4: play here right of where the restrictions come from from
Speaker 4: federal law, from state law. There is there is a
Speaker 4: lot going on, but also sort of and you know,
Speaker 4: I've heard you say and the conference I heard it
Speaker 4: repeatedly said, you know, people saying a Blackrock Vanguard State Street.
Speaker 4: I think it's really important to remember that these are
Speaker 4: independent entities that invest independently and that you know, invest
Speaker 4: you know, on the basis of what their clients are
Speaker 4: choosing for them to invest, So we can't talk about
Speaker 4: them collectively.
Speaker 3: That's something that's really important to note.
Speaker 4: The other piece to note is that this is a
Speaker 4: very large and very diverse industry. You're talking about industry
Speaker 4: that's well over one hundred trillion dollars globally, well over
Speaker 4: like maybe one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 4: So when you look at how much they hold compared
Speaker 4: to that vast global it just gives you a sense
Speaker 4: of like how big this industry is.
Speaker 3: It's very diversified.
Speaker 4: A lot of players, a lot of choice in this industry,
Speaker 4: you know that said as I said, like, there are
Speaker 4: policymakers and investors who want different solutions when it comes
Speaker 4: to voting, but it's it's important to look at what
Speaker 4: is happening and also the benefits that these providers have
Speaker 4: brought to the to the table when it comes to voting,
Speaker 4: when it comes to the economies of scale they have
Speaker 4: created for funds. We look at any solutions in this space, and.
Speaker 2: One thing that was brought up by a lawyer from Virginia.
Speaker 2: She said something I thought was interesting, which is, there's
Speaker 2: too much demand for the regulatory supply when it comes
Speaker 2: to some of these issues like climate like the government
Speaker 2: really hasn't done a lot and so, but there's all
Speaker 2: this demand built up to do something and it's been
Speaker 2: put on the asset managers, who you could argue you
Speaker 2: are getting too much pressure for what their role is
Speaker 2: in society because of that lack of progress by the
Speaker 2: government itself. I thought that was a pretty decent point.
Speaker 2: That was somebody who was basically trying to say, chill
Speaker 2: on the asset managers. Okay, they're not going to solve
Speaker 2: everything here, but if their pressure is huge, and I
Speaker 2: do think if there was some something done with the laws,
Speaker 2: this would be there, this wouldn't be as big of
Speaker 2: a topic. So I do think that's part of a
Speaker 2: play here.
Speaker 1: Well, you've been on both sides of that, right, You've
Speaker 1: been in the government side, and you've been in the
Speaker 1: private sector, a publicly traded company, Like how do you
Speaker 1: thread that needle or how do you think the we
Speaker 1: should be threading that needle?
Speaker 4: So when you look at asset managers, you know, asset
Speaker 4: managers are looking at their clients, their clients aret of
Speaker 4: ones that provide the mandates. For the institutional clients, the
Speaker 4: mandates can be more complicated, obviously, and but for even
Speaker 4: for retail retail invests on the basi of funds, and
Speaker 4: funds have very specific mandates and the client is choosing that.
Speaker 4: So you know, for for asset managers, the first point
Speaker 4: that the foundation is client choice. Everything else comes from
Speaker 4: that choice the client makes. And you have a lot
Speaker 4: of clients who are very interested in the e SG
Speaker 4: space and funds that target certain you know, client solutions
Speaker 4: or certain solutions to very pressing social policies. That is
Speaker 4: what the client wants, right And so you know, asset
Speaker 4: managers are just that they're not the asset owners. They
Speaker 4: are the asset managers when it comes to the government,
Speaker 4: you know, where you would look for, what you'd look
Speaker 4: for as a regulated entity, and in this really complex space, frankly,
Speaker 4: is clarity. What is the roadmap, What can you do,
Speaker 4: what can you not do? And have that clarity so
Speaker 4: that you can fulfill your mission, especially here for advisors
Speaker 4: as a fiduciary to the clients who are entrusting you
Speaker 4: with their assets.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about ESG related accept the funds themselves. So
Speaker 2: one of Genser's current priorities, or at least one of
Speaker 2: his things he's looking at, is ESG ETFs. And I've
Speaker 2: traveled around, I've worked with our ESG team. There's a
Speaker 2: huge debate about what you're actually getting with an ESGTF.
Speaker 2: Some like the biggest one ESGU, which is the one,
Speaker 2: the biggest one. The holdings look a lot like the
Speaker 2: S and P. There's a couple of things taken out,
Speaker 2: but it's very close, just a little tilt away from
Speaker 2: the index. Then there's ones that go more hardcore. We
Speaker 2: actually have a scoring system. We try to help investors.
Speaker 2: But how much is naming an issue with the sec
Speaker 2: when a product comes in, how much do you need
Speaker 2: to worry about what it holds and what it does
Speaker 2: versus just sort of letting a lot of freedom in
Speaker 2: what you name it and what you hold as long
Speaker 2: as you spill it out in the perspectives.
Speaker 4: So like, without getting into any any specific funds or
Speaker 4: or or fund names, I'm not a portfolio manager, and
Speaker 4: you don't want me to be.
Speaker 3: A portfolio manager.
Speaker 4: When you look at ESG, the term itself, in my opinion,
Speaker 4: is a problem. It's it's it's very imprecise. It brings
Speaker 4: together three very broad terms under this one you know
Speaker 4: one one Moniker, if you will, and you know, let
Speaker 4: me illustrate with the most simplistic of examples, and I will,
Speaker 4: I will say very simplistic examples. You could have one
Speaker 4: fund that targets investments in companies that haven't at zero goal.
Speaker 3: That's an ESG fund.
Speaker 4: You can have another fund that avoids since stocks I
Speaker 4: will not invest in alcohol, guns, not that's an ESG fund.
Speaker 4: You can have another fund that targets companies that have
Speaker 4: particular board characteristics.
Speaker 3: That's also an ESG fund.
Speaker 4: So if you are an investor and you're interested in
Speaker 4: funds and interested putting your money in funds that will
Speaker 4: help you know, with climate solutions, and you just do
Speaker 4: ESG funds, then what do you do with that? And
Speaker 4: how do you get to that bottom of like I
Speaker 4: want not just broad umbrella ESG. I want funds that
Speaker 4: target climate solutions. So there is a problem with the term.
Speaker 4: And when you look at the SEC rule, and by
Speaker 4: the way, I just to I think I would know
Speaker 4: the SEC in trying to bring clarity to the space.
Speaker 3: That is a good thing.
Speaker 4: That's important for investors because here you're talking about retail products,
Speaker 4: so it's really important to bring clarity. But if you're
Speaker 4: doubling down on this term that is just so broad
Speaker 4: and includes so much, are you really going to bring
Speaker 4: clarity to space?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it's a difficult question because some like advisors may
Speaker 2: want water down ESG. They may want just a slight
Speaker 2: tilt because they don't like tracking her. But an ESG
Speaker 2: advocate would argue, that's not really ESG investing. And so
Speaker 2: same thing happens in smart beta. There's value ETFs that
Speaker 2: are just barely value, and a quant would be like,
Speaker 2: that's just that's not really value investing. You got to
Speaker 2: go hardcore. So I don't know, it's tough to police
Speaker 2: this in general, but I think the names. When I
Speaker 2: wrote my first book, I had the golden rule of
Speaker 2: ETF investing is never totally trust the name. You know,
Speaker 2: definitely look at the holdings, no matter what it's called,
Speaker 2: or no matter how good of a job it does,
Speaker 2: because sometimes the names don't quite match up well.
Speaker 1: Extension of what Eric's asked you, how much does the
Speaker 1: SEC look at the ticker itself and care about what's
Speaker 1: in the ticker or what's implied by the ticker.
Speaker 4: Maybe, So I want to touch on names and ticker.
Speaker 4: So first names. Names are important, but I would the
Speaker 4: hope that we're not buying funds based.
Speaker 3: On just the name.
Speaker 1: And I hope, yeah, there moment that was kind of
Speaker 1: kind of part of part of what drove that moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know that just really hope that's not
Speaker 4: where like at least like the look at the fact
Speaker 4: sheet right there's And by the way, if you're going
Speaker 4: through a financial professional like an advisor or a broker,
Speaker 4: then they're looking beyond the name, and I I you know,
Speaker 4: self directed investors are actually ones that believe they have
Speaker 4: like a they want to be self directed. They're choosing
Speaker 4: to be self directed. They they have facility with the market.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if they just look in at
Speaker 4: the name. So I wouldn't want us to overplay the
Speaker 4: name is important truth in advertising, but it shouldn't be
Speaker 4: such a huge focus that we lose sort of track
Speaker 4: of like it cannot be the only component on on
Speaker 4: the ticker. I mean, I will tell you this, I
Speaker 4: mean you could you could spend time I'm arguing with
Speaker 4: a fund on a name and then they get an
Speaker 4: interesting ticker.
Speaker 2: Hold on, I'm gonna jump in. I know, I know
Speaker 2: what you're thinking of the blockchain ETF. They didn't want
Speaker 2: the word blockchain and the fund and then they were like, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: we'll call it the Data Transformational something or another, and
Speaker 2: then block is the ticker. We always we always wondered
Speaker 2: about that. It's like it's they It's almost like the
Speaker 2: industry has this little bit of an ace up their sleeve.
Speaker 2: If they really need.
Speaker 1: It, you can do we can either confirm nor deny.
Speaker 4: If I'm not thinking of any funny example, I'm just
Speaker 4: I'm just.
Speaker 2: Saying, how about the how about the marijuana one? MJ
Speaker 2: is the ticker, but the name is like emerging agrosphere
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, I am curious because you were at the
Speaker 1: SEC when cannabis came up? So how did how did
Speaker 1: the SEC evaluate? All of a sudden I could probably
Speaker 1: do a pun here, but all of a sudden, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of cannabis themed ETFs.
Speaker 4: Something that people sort of don't think of on the outside,
Speaker 4: which is, you know how the commission is, how it
Speaker 4: takes in some of these products. Right, in some cases
Speaker 4: the product, everything about it is sort of under a rule,
Speaker 4: and so all you're looking at is the registration statement
Speaker 4: and making sure that meets the regulatory requirements for disclosure.
Speaker 4: In some cases, like the non transparent ETFs by way
Speaker 4: of example, they don't fall within the regulatory framework, so
Speaker 4: you have the whole exemptive process where the commission can
Speaker 4: have a much bigger role in shaping. So when the
Speaker 4: cannabis ETFs came in, they were in that disclosure space.
Speaker 4: So are you disclosing all the risks? Are you looking
Speaker 4: at any legal risks in that regard? So that one
Speaker 4: is just a focus of what is it doing? Are
Speaker 4: you saying what it's doing? And are you telling the
Speaker 4: world out there what if any potential liability you would
Speaker 4: have in frankly, you know, can you sell it given
Speaker 4: the laws at the time.
Speaker 2: And you know, one thing we've seen over and over
Speaker 2: throughout history is Canada seems to like there'll be filings
Speaker 2: in the US for something and the sec will you
Speaker 2: can tell, be wrestling over it, and then Canada will
Speaker 2: just launch it like they seem to have liberal regulators.
Speaker 2: That's how the first TTF came out. Actually MX thought
Speaker 2: of it, but then share the idea with Toronto Stock
Speaker 2: Exchange and they launched it in Canada.
Speaker 1: First.
Speaker 2: They didn't happen with fixed income, That didn't happen with cannabis.
Speaker 2: It's happened over and over. Do you do you care
Speaker 2: what Canada does at all? Like, are you or does
Speaker 2: that give you an incubator to see, Hey, did it
Speaker 2: work up in Canada? Maybe we'll be okay with it.
Speaker 4: So just speaking from my you know, former former hat
Speaker 4: you always look at where their regulations and the products
Speaker 4: are developing and other jurisdictions, but it's always important to
Speaker 4: keep in mind that we are not in other jurisdiction
Speaker 4: like the United States jurisdiction. We are the most sophisticated,
Speaker 4: most mature market the ETF space, for example, fixed income derivatives.
Speaker 4: We are the biggest market. So you can always look
Speaker 4: at what's happening somewhere else, but you have to keep
Speaker 4: your eyes grounded right here at home because our rules,
Speaker 4: our markets are different, and you shouldn't, you know, bar
Speaker 4: regulation from other places simply because like you think they
Speaker 4: sound good, Like you really have to think about will
Speaker 4: it work here? Is it going to help our markets
Speaker 4: evolve and develop. Does it lend to market resiliency? Does
Speaker 4: it lend itself to innovation but in a way that
Speaker 4: works in our markets.
Speaker 1: Is there any quiet second guessing that goes on in
Speaker 1: the SEC where it's like, we really should have done
Speaker 1: that differently.
Speaker 3: That's a great question, you know.
Speaker 4: The SEC, and I will just give us sort of
Speaker 4: like a chapeau to the staff and the Commission. They
Speaker 4: work really hard to make sure that they answer or
Speaker 4: get answers to the questions they have. I think sometimes
Speaker 4: that results in perhaps some frustration with the pace of
Speaker 4: working with the Commission, But it really is to your
Speaker 4: point that you don't want to get to the place
Speaker 4: where you like, you know, you know, I miss something
Speaker 4: or didn't do something. Hopefully, if that ever happens, it's
Speaker 4: something that's pretty minor.
Speaker 1: Well actually related to that. Then, because you've had multiple
Speaker 1: tour of duties and you were under j Clayton during
Speaker 1: your tenure and now Gary Ginsler's there and that's who
Speaker 1: the head was at the conference, I'm assuming you have
Speaker 1: you've had others SEC chairs and previous tours of duties.
Speaker 1: How much did the SEC really change based on who's
Speaker 1: in charge.
Speaker 3: Great question.
Speaker 4: So I started under Chairman Donaldson, so that was I'm
Speaker 4: dating myself here right by quite a bit. Look, I mean,
Speaker 4: the SEC is an organization of very professional staff, many
Speaker 4: of whom are career staffers who have been there for
Speaker 4: a very very long time, and by virtue of that,
Speaker 4: they are actually experts in in in the markets and
Speaker 4: in the areas that they regulate. So yes, I mean
Speaker 4: when you get a different chair in the agency, the
Speaker 4: chair is the one that puts together the agenda for
Speaker 4: the agency, so you get different rule makings. You can
Speaker 4: get different flavors here, but I think the piece that
Speaker 4: in the rule makings are very public. But there is
Speaker 4: so much to the mission of the of the agency
Speaker 4: that's done by the career staff day in, day out,
Speaker 4: and those those pieces tend to be pretty consistent. But
Speaker 4: the one you know, significant difference, well if you will,
Speaker 4: is the rule making agenda that is driven by the
Speaker 4: Chair of the Commission.
Speaker 1: Can I ask then about how crypto is being talked
Speaker 1: about in your time there, and and then what you
Speaker 1: what you make of what we've seen within the last
Speaker 1: few weeks and months.
Speaker 4: So I think I have a pretty public letter around
Speaker 4: the you know, bitcoin ETFs.
Speaker 3: I think it wasn't.
Speaker 4: I can't remember the date now, but it was pretty
Speaker 4: early in my tenure when we published it and that one,
Speaker 4: and we also did a request for common on custody
Speaker 4: for investment advisors. And what we did there was sort
Speaker 4: of put it out there in the marketplace, very transparent.
Speaker 4: These are all the issues, so that you understand where
Speaker 4: the staff is coming from. So when you're approaching us,
Speaker 4: you know where the questions are, and everybody knows where
Speaker 4: the questions are.
Speaker 2: This was a big letter because the filings were piling up.
Speaker 1: This sort of.
Speaker 2: Created a lot, I think a lot more work in
Speaker 2: the prospectuses. I thought they would answer these as best
Speaker 2: they could, and over the next couple of years they
Speaker 2: would have answered all these questions. But I do remember
Speaker 2: that was a huge It was a little bit of
Speaker 2: cold water because there's a lot of questions.
Speaker 4: We thought it was important to make sure the marketplace
Speaker 4: understood all the issues and transparently, so not you know,
Speaker 4: if you came in to have a meeting with us,
Speaker 4: we would tell you, but it was really important for
Speaker 4: everybody else to have that information as well, not just
Speaker 4: you in a closed meeting, so everybody was on the
Speaker 4: same level playing field. So we were talking earlier about
Speaker 4: sort of the touch point to the Commission when products
Speaker 4: come in, be it like a rule or an exemption
Speaker 4: or disclosure. And what was happening was you were getting
Speaker 4: a lot of these registration statements filed when there were
Speaker 4: like very significant legal questions, and that was sort of like,
Speaker 4: you know, let's just you know, not keep on just
Speaker 4: piling on registration statements. Let us answer this legal questions,
Speaker 4: think through them and see where we can go. You know,
Speaker 4: obviously it's still a there's still lots of questions. Eric
Speaker 4: kind and I don't say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, this is something we've been tracking forever. It's
Speaker 2: now eleven years old the horse race. The first one
Speaker 2: was filed by Winkelvoss, and there's been seventy eight filings
Speaker 2: along the way. We actually tracked this whole big board,
Speaker 2: and you know, most of them have been rejected. But
Speaker 2: now you've got a couple more filing. And the reason,
Speaker 2: as you can understand, is that if you're first with
Speaker 2: a spot bitcoin etf you are an instant millionaire. You
Speaker 2: can probably buy a small island. It's like, again I
Speaker 2: equated the cannonball run. You know, whoever gets to LA
Speaker 2: first and that movie gets all the money. It's a
Speaker 2: first to market thing, and so of course they're just
Speaker 2: going to like roll the dice left and right just
Speaker 2: in case. I don't know, you've shifted your mindset and
Speaker 2: you're like, now's the time. So I feel for the issuers,
Speaker 2: but also feel for the SEC. It's just the It
Speaker 2: is quite the situation though I called a saga. It's
Speaker 2: now eleven years running.
Speaker 1: Did the SEC have a big board that they just
Speaker 1: put it was like, oh, here's another one.
Speaker 3: So you know, a few sort of threads to pull here.
Speaker 4: I think having the market having clarity on where to
Speaker 4: SEC is right now with respect to these products would
Speaker 4: be great. If you look at the safeguarding rule that
Speaker 4: was recently proposed, you know, there seems to be a
Speaker 4: more of a shutting the doors as opposed to anything
Speaker 4: else in the space. I think in the bitcoin space,
Speaker 4: crypto asset space in general, frankly, more regulatory clarity, and
Speaker 4: this is not just about the SEC, would be welcome.
Speaker 4: I think any player in a space would would agree
Speaker 4: probably with what I'm saying. So this is a space
Speaker 4: that regulatory certainty and clarity and allowing innovation with the
Speaker 4: proper market and investor protections would be fantastic. And I
Speaker 4: don't know that we're getting that. We're just getting a
Speaker 4: lot of like, we don't like this, so we will
Speaker 4: continue to you know, not allow things to go out.
Speaker 3: So that needs some work.
Speaker 4: But in general, if you step back even before before
Speaker 4: we even get into this new asset class, ETFs are
Speaker 4: still not on the same playing field as just your
Speaker 4: typical mutual fund there and you know this right you
Speaker 4: talked about it Eric in the in the conference, there
Speaker 4: are still, for example, for non transparent class ATF are
Speaker 4: still assets that you can't run a non transparent because
Speaker 4: it's still it's outside the rule and you still don't
Speaker 4: have an exemption for it. So I think for me,
Speaker 4: getting ETFs to a place where it's on par with
Speaker 4: mutual funds would be a fantastic step forward for a
Speaker 4: product that I think has really proved itself in the
Speaker 4: marketplace over and over again.
Speaker 3: So that's one.
Speaker 4: And then the other thing which I think would be
Speaker 4: really helpful for ETFs, especially fixed income ETFs, is that
Speaker 4: they should be getting fixed income treatment like not equity
Speaker 4: treatment for accounting purposes. I think that would just really
Speaker 4: help that product as well. So looking at ETFs to
Speaker 4: equalize them with mutual funds in terms of the offerings
Speaker 4: because they are open ended funds, but also looking at
Speaker 4: the ETF and sort of evolving that product to where
Speaker 4: it should be evolved, because if its unique features is
Speaker 4: another place. And then going back to crypto and crypto
Speaker 4: assets and bitcoin, I'd say regulatory clarity, appreciating that investors
Speaker 4: want this asset class and making sure that the you know,
Speaker 4: it's being provided in the market in the way that
Speaker 4: meets investor protections, market resilience, all these all these things
Speaker 4: that you know are I have always helped our markets
Speaker 4: and made our markets what they are, like the best
Speaker 4: in the world.
Speaker 3: These are all good things.
Speaker 2: And when I presented by the way, I had to
Speaker 2: put a cryptoslide in there, and I showed the percent
Speaker 2: premium of ETF spockpick whin ETFs overseas versus gs GBTC,
Speaker 2: which is like a closed end fund, and the premium
Speaker 2: is all over the place, right, it's like a broken
Speaker 2: you know, that's like a clothes un fund. The ETFs
Speaker 2: did a pretty good job during the past couple of
Speaker 2: years in other markets and My point to them, because
Speaker 2: I had their ear, was like trust the et or
Speaker 2: have faith in the ETF, maybe even more than you
Speaker 2: have a lack of faith in the crypto market because
Speaker 2: a lot of the market makers are not going to
Speaker 2: fool round with like shady exchanges, and so those exchanges
Speaker 2: may actually up their game to get the money from
Speaker 2: the market makers. And if you could custody it with fidelity,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be way safer than you wouldn't have an
Speaker 2: FTX situation because the ETF is transferable. Because this your
Speaker 2: assets would be safe. So there were a couple of
Speaker 2: reasons I thought the ETF again should be But I
Speaker 2: totally understand all these other issues. For sure, it's complicated,
Speaker 2: I mean to say the least, especially after last year.
Speaker 2: So I get it. It's just, you know, it's one
Speaker 2: of these things we cover and I get exhausted, frankly,
Speaker 2: because it's just like goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious. This is a crazy moment in American culture.
Speaker 1: I think even investing has become partisan, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: about that. Having been both on the public side of
Speaker 1: the SEC and then entering the private markets and publicly
Speaker 1: traded companies again, but what is it like to live
Speaker 1: through this moment where investing has become a partisan sport
Speaker 1: and what and what what concerns do you have for
Speaker 1: investors about that?
Speaker 3: So it's it's not investing rit large, it's EESG. Yeah, right, and.
Speaker 4: I definitely was not expecting the moments as it happened.
Speaker 4: Then the very strong views, but.
Speaker 3: That's from from both from both sides.
Speaker 4: So you know, if you're on one side, you have
Speaker 4: stakeholders accusing asset managers of not doing enough to address
Speaker 4: climate change or whatever social issue that is important to them,
Speaker 4: demanding that they adopt certain investment and stewardship practices to
Speaker 4: promote green finance and corporate social responsibility. And that's without
Speaker 4: regard to the fact that asset managers have a fiduciary
Speaker 4: obligation duty to asset owners.
Speaker 3: It's the asset owner that chooses.
Speaker 4: Right On the other side of that, you have stakeholders
Speaker 4: who accusing asset managers of using other people's money for
Speaker 4: social or political goals that are not allowed aligned with
Speaker 4: creating shareholder value. So the values versus value and this
Speaker 4: is what has led to hundreds of anti and pro
Speaker 4: ESG bills across the US. I think this legislative session
Speaker 4: for the States was over two hundred and seventy if
Speaker 4: I'm right about the number.
Speaker 1: So that's like there was never any and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden this if you look.
Speaker 4: At last year versus this year, like the number has
Speaker 4: significantly gone up. I'd be curious, like next year what
Speaker 4: the what the number would be. But it just really
Speaker 4: tells you how really divided we are here in the
Speaker 4: US on the state level. Obviously on the federal level
Speaker 4: we're also divided. You're hearing you're hearing that in the
Speaker 4: Congress and between the different parties. And then you also
Speaker 4: if you have if you're a global asset manager, you
Speaker 4: actually also have stakeholders in Europe and Asia and the
Speaker 4: Middle East, in Latin America. They also have very strong
Speaker 4: views about this. So it's really difficult, frankly, to thread
Speaker 4: the needle and get to a place where there is
Speaker 4: a common understanding on these on these issues.
Speaker 1: So where do we go from here?
Speaker 4: So, you know, looking at the at the US, I
Speaker 4: think a couple of things.
Speaker 3: One is the term ESG.
Speaker 4: I think if I'm on one side of this debate,
Speaker 4: whatever I say, I'm not going to convince you when
Speaker 4: you're not going to convince me, and that's just not
Speaker 4: going to a good place to be. So we can
Speaker 4: keep on using a term that everybody has entrenched around
Speaker 4: what it means and think that we are going to
Speaker 4: find our way to the to a positive end results.
Speaker 4: So the term ESG has become in and of itself
Speaker 4: and an issue, and unfortunately the SEC rules would enshrine it,
Speaker 4: which would you know, kind of enshine the problem, if
Speaker 4: you will. The other part of it is when we
Speaker 4: are looking at the federal level, when we are looking
Speaker 4: at rules that help with the climate disclosure other disclosures,
Speaker 4: just really making sure that we stay true my opinion
Speaker 4: to the US system of market regulation, not adopting things,
Speaker 4: for example, from Europe. Europe has a very different system
Speaker 4: than ours, and that's not to say one is better
Speaker 4: and the other.
Speaker 3: It's just different.
Speaker 4: In Europe, pushing social policy through market regulation is a
Speaker 4: very well accepted practice. It's just how it works there.
Speaker 3: We don't do that.
Speaker 4: The US market system is about full unfair disclosure, it's
Speaker 4: about market resiliency, it's about investor protection. It's a very
Speaker 4: different system. So staying true to what has worked for
Speaker 4: us would be great, and I think that was a
Speaker 4: topic that was also discussed pretty at length actually in
Speaker 4: the conference that you and I were at.
Speaker 2: Eric, Yeah, ESGQ up a lot, and part of the
Speaker 2: Europe US gap, I think also is here we were
Speaker 2: told to we plan for own retirements. We have for
Speaker 2: one case we become fund investors. We don't really assume
Speaker 2: the government's going to bail us out or not bail
Speaker 2: us out, but like hook us up for retirement. Maybe we'
Speaker 2: get a little from SOB security in Europe. I don't
Speaker 2: think they're as tuned in. And also in Europe you
Speaker 2: don't have any like Amazons and Tesla's that you really
Speaker 2: want to capture in your portfolio, so they can screen
Speaker 2: stuff out with little less worried they're going to miss
Speaker 2: out on returns. So I do think there's a couple
Speaker 2: issues in Europe that I agree with you. It's not America.
Speaker 2: This is a different system here, ESG. The term I
Speaker 2: agree it's I say it's got baggage. You know, it's
Speaker 2: got so much baggage it's become a political football. But
Speaker 2: like I was at a panel at inside ETFs two
Speaker 2: months ago and someone was like, we need to have
Speaker 2: someone sort of like unify, be like, look, none of
Speaker 2: us want polluted rivers, right, we all agree, Like there's
Speaker 2: definitely some common ground on ESG and the haters. Maybe
Speaker 2: not everything, but the term itself has become like it's
Speaker 2: just you just go. It gets polarized and it's over.
Speaker 2: So I agree with basically both of those points.
Speaker 1: Okay. AI was another topic that came up at the conference,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, how concerned about AI are you?
Speaker 4: I'm I'm I'm a middle aged woman, so AI is
Speaker 4: really above my level of understanding. I have a college,
Speaker 4: you know, kid who's studying computer science, so hopefully he'll
Speaker 4: explain it to me one day.
Speaker 3: Look, AI is, it's it's novel.
Speaker 4: It's we're seeing it in so many different spaces, you know.
Speaker 4: Cher Gensler raised it during the conference. Is something that
Speaker 4: you know, he is he is looking at, which I
Speaker 4: can understand when it's something that could fundamentally alter pieces
Speaker 4: of the market ecosystem.
Speaker 3: I think I understand it.
Speaker 1: I mean he said it would could be bigger than
Speaker 1: the internet, right, yeah, he was.
Speaker 2: I was blown away. He was sort of it could
Speaker 2: be bigger than the Internet, and he had all kinds
Speaker 2: of h had a task for us already going out
Speaker 2: looking at it. And this is just when I was
Speaker 2: breaking in the press. But I get skeptical of these
Speaker 2: things that get hyped so quickly.
Speaker 4: You know, I just let the market do its thing.
Speaker 4: But I think for me, it's really interesting when you
Speaker 4: have a focus on AI when we are in technology
Speaker 4: minus one oh one. In some cases here in asset
Speaker 4: management space, we are still sort of talking about whether
Speaker 4: we should be allowing E delivery, So we're not even
Speaker 4: Internet stage, right, you know, before we talk about a AI,
Speaker 4: I think there's some pieces of technological innovation that could
Speaker 4: really help investors, For example, if they can get their
Speaker 4: fun documents in a user friendly way in an app
Speaker 4: ninn PDF by the way, if we can even get
Speaker 4: to that. But we are like talking about AI when
Speaker 4: we're just honestly, we still are talking PDFs, some paper
Speaker 4: tax machines.
Speaker 2: It's like that playoffs. Yeah, let's just handle the regular
Speaker 2: season first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not even overtime yet, right, I mean it's minus.
Speaker 2: It's week four, all right, let's just playoffs. Let's just
Speaker 2: put that back.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious. You have a new new job, Sullivan
Speaker 1: and Cromwell, What are you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm a lawyer first and foremost, about twenty five years now,
Speaker 4: almost out of law school, and I'm really really excited
Speaker 4: about joining and Cromwell because with the roster of incredible
Speaker 4: clients and incredible talented attorney, I'll be working with my
Speaker 4: partners and and everybody else that makes ab solved and Cromwell,
Speaker 4: you know, to be at the front edge of like
Speaker 4: cutting innovation, you know, big regutatory questions and helping asset
Speaker 4: management through that. That's something that really excites me. So
Speaker 4: I'm really looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: So if you never found yourself doing another tour of
Speaker 1: duty at the SEC and I mean head of AI,
Speaker 1: yeah there's one. I mean you have a consultant in
Speaker 1: your in your sound. I think by that point, what
Speaker 1: would make you lose sleep?
Speaker 3: That's a great question.
Speaker 4: Uh. But by the way, I've done three So that's
Speaker 4: more than enough for any for any for any lifetime.
Speaker 4: You know, I've never approached it that way. I've always
Speaker 4: approached it with this isn't especially I'm just talking about
Speaker 4: the industry that i've sort of when I when I regulated,
Speaker 4: that was the only industry I regulated. It was always
Speaker 4: investment management. It's an industry that prides itself on regulation.
Speaker 4: They actually very few people know this, but the nineteen
Speaker 4: forty Act, unlike the other federal Securities Acts, the industry
Speaker 4: was part of drafting it. They actually sat there with
Speaker 4: the Congress and the SEC in drafting it. They asked
Speaker 4: in some cases for more onerous provisions and what the
Speaker 4: sec was recommending to Congress. So the industry prides itself
Speaker 4: on its history of participating in being part of the
Speaker 4: foundation for regulating itself and being a regulator. And frankly,
Speaker 4: the industry is what it is today that you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's thriving, it's big, it's growing, it's it's the
Speaker 4: biggest part of financial services. The asset management industry is
Speaker 4: bigger than insurance, bigger than banking. Because of that, you know,
Speaker 4: it's just it's you know, I think it's a great industry. So,
Speaker 4: you know, for me, I don't always think about the
Speaker 4: lowest common denominator. I don't always think that regulation should
Speaker 4: be at that level. I think about how to make
Speaker 4: sure that we meet those things that make the US
Speaker 4: capital markets, you know what they are, and continue thriving,
Speaker 4: which is the full fair disclosure, making accessible, making sure
Speaker 4: any innovation happens with the parameters of market resiliency, investor protection,
Speaker 4: but not losing sight of the fact that we have
Speaker 4: a really strong resilient market and an industry that actually
Speaker 4: wants to be regulated and is happy being regulated, and
Speaker 4: for the most part, they do what's right.
Speaker 1: Okay. Sometimes we asked a question, we think this will
Speaker 1: be good.
Speaker 2: I'm curious what your answer is going.
Speaker 1: To be a favorite ticker other than your own, which
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, you've worked a couple of
Speaker 1: places that maybe you shouldn't be able to recommend something from.
Speaker 4: So Eric, you mentioned inside ETFs the very first, and
Speaker 4: I think may have been unfortunate, the only inside ETFs conference.
Speaker 4: Loved the conference by the way that I attended. There
Speaker 4: was a presentation where everybody got on stage in a
Speaker 4: pink T shirt with the word she on it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Tom Lyden led that.
Speaker 3: Charge I have that I have that T shirt. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I would say that that's that. That ticker was
Speaker 3: pretty good.
Speaker 1: Good one.
Speaker 2: That's good. That's a good answer and with with a
Speaker 2: little narrative memory attached to it. Very good. Some people
Speaker 2: struggle with that question, especially people who work at issue.
Speaker 1: She's hard for them to.
Speaker 4: But if I could come up with a ticket from
Speaker 4: myself many.
Speaker 3: That would be good.
Speaker 1: You can keep that to yourself, you know, you might
Speaker 1: find yourself in u you know, in the market again sometime.
Speaker 1: All right, Dlia Blast, thanks so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on Trillions. Thank you for having me, Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Trillions until next time. You can find us on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
Speaker 1: wherever else you'd like to listen. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. We're on Twitter. I'm at Joel Webbers Show.
Speaker 1: He's at Eric Baulchness. This episode of Trillions was produced
Speaker 1: by Magnus Hendrickson. Bye