ETF Inflows & Outflows
Performance Leaders & Laggards
Weekly ETF Reads
Why Advisors (and Family Offices) Should Consider Creating their Own ETFs by Wes Gray
“As the break-even point moves from $100mm –> $50mm –> $25mm…things get exciting.”
Investors Piled Into the Cheapest Funds in 2022 by Bryan Armour
“The lion’s share of flows into low-cost funds has gone to index mutual funds and ETFs.”
Into the Ether… Futures ETF Filings by Roxanna Islam
“The flurry of ether futures filings at the heels of the recent group of spot bitcoin filings proves that institutions still have significant interest in the crypto space.”
Pending Grayscale ruling could tip balance in race for bitcoin ETF by Sarah Wynn
“The SEC could be warming up to the idea of approving a spot bitcoin ETF.”
Advisors Can’t Ignore Spot Bitcoin ETF by Jeff Benjamin
“As a conservative rep, I would likely not recommend bitcoin; however, there are clients asking for it occasionally, and an ETF proxy would be really handy.”
Index-Tracking ETFs Were All the Rage, Until Now by Jack Pitcher
“We may have been a little late to the ETF party, but we were early to the active ETF revolution.”
Lots to Celebrate at the NYSE by Todd Rosenbluth
“The NYSE’s 2,000 ETF listings underscore the industry’s strong growth as well as the wide interest and acceptance ETFs have achieved in just three short decades.”
(Note: On the ETF Prime podcast this week, I had the pleasure of visiting with NYSE’s Head of ETPs Douglas Yones. Douglas offered perspective on this recent ETF milestone and we also covered everything from active ETFs to spot bitcoin ETFs. You can listen to our entire conversation here.)
ETF Tweet of the Week
It was announced this week that the Noble Absolute Return ETF (NOPE) would be liquidating and closing. NOPE is managed by long-time industry veteran George Noble, who started two different billion dollar hedge funds and previously worked alongside Fidelity’s Peter Lynch. George burst onto the Twitter scene early last year with heavily attended “Twitter Spaces” that featured prominent guests from across the investment landscape. The interest surrounding those Twitter Spaces motivated George to launch NOPE, an ETF with a tagline of “Full Cycle Investing – NOPE to passive investing, NOPE to ignoring valuations, and NOPE to asset bubbles“.
NOPE came out of the gate strong following its September 2022 launch, surging 35%+ into late December versus the S&P 500’s 4% return. Since that time, it’s been all downhill as NOPE has plummeted nearly 70% versus the passive index’s 19% gain. Large short positions in ETFs/stocks such as QQQ, NVDA, and TSLA ultimately prevented NOPE from surviving a full market cycle. I discussed performance with George back in January and he was very candid about NOPE’s rapid decline, though he remained optimistic the strategy would prevail. It’s possible George will eventually be proven right and was simply too early with his bearish calls. Investors weren’t willing to hang around and find out though, leading to NOPE’s demise. Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas summed up the entire situation quite well:
“George Noble was very vocal, and he clearly built up some critics. I would never invest in it, because I’m an optimist and a long-term investor, but what he did takes guts. He had a clear thesis; it just didn’t work out.”
ETF Chart of the Week
If ever there were a chart depicting ETF innovation, this is it. The first bond ETFs debuted in July 2002 with iShares launching TLT (20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF), LQD (Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF), IEF (7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF), and SHY (1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF). Since then, there has been a never-ending parade of new ideas as ETF issuers have sliced and diced the fixed income market in every way imaginable. That said, I believe there’s still plenty of room for more imagination in this space, which currently features over 600 ETFs with $1.4 trillion in assets.
