Essentially unheard of a decade ago, investing strategies that screen holdings for compliance to Environmental, Social and Governance values have captured increasing investor interest. Tony Campos, Head of Sustainable Investment, Americas, FTSE Russell, joins the podcast to explain how the process of ESG screening works at FTSE Russell. Not wanting to leave things purely academic, we go under the hood of the two largest ETFs that track FTSE Russell Indexes, Vanguard's ESG U.S. (ESGV) and...

Despite the S&P 500 being up an impressive 18% in 2020, the utilities sector did not take part in the rally finishing the year flat. Reaves' John Bartlett has spent nearly 30 years closely tracking Utilities names through every type of investing environment. Bartlett currently co-manages the firm's flagship Reaves Utility Income Fund (UTG), as closed-end fund with nearly $1.7B in AUM. He also co-manages Reaves' first exchange-traded fund, the Virtus Reaves Utilities ETF (UTES). With a...

When Fidelity rolled out its first semi-transparent active equity ETFs in June 2020, it was far from certain these new types of ETFs would resonate with investors. With $350M in assets between FBCV, FBCG and FMIL just seven months in, Fidelity's Greg Friedman has termed the initial interest in Fidelity's semi-transparent active equity ETFs "better than anticipated". Greg re-joins Let's Talk ETFs to discuss the famed asset manager's next steps in the semi-transparent active ETF space,...

Investors searching for the ETF with the highest allocation to GME at the start of 2021 would have turned up the Cambria Shareholder Yield ETF (SYLD). A quant by nature, SYLD's portfolio manager Meb Faber accumulated his outsized position in GameStop (GME) patiently over nearly a decade, sticking to his guns as shares moved consistently lower (Meb is the co-founder, CEO and CIO of Cambria Investment Management). Rather than taking a victory lap, Meb views his experience with GME as an...

After 15 years as an analyst at top financial institutions, Dan Victor stepped out on his own in 2018 as an independent investor and market strategist. The result is his increasingly popular Seeking Alpha handle, BOOX Research, where he combines a data-driven, fundamentals-first approach to offer nearly daily stock and ETF ideas, as well as his Seeking Alpha Marketplace service, Conviction Dossier. In today's podcast, we stress test three of his' top ETF picks for 2021: Emerging Markets...

The focus of a multitude of conspiracy theories across the nether regions of the internet, the returns provided by playing the move to 5G have been anything but fake. According to Esoterica Capital CEO Bruce Liu, the move to 5G is not so much an upgrade to an existing tech cycle as a re-envisioning of the entire tech stack. Investors should take note when Liu discusses anything 5G-related: his firm's flagship ETF, WUGI, has doubled up on peers FIVG and NXTG since launching in late March,...

After years as an index fund evangelist at top ETF firms like BlackRock and SSgA, Dodd Kittsley did a 180 of sorts, becoming Director of active manager Davis Advisors. Still opposed to the “closet indexing” that marks many active managers, Dodd was drawn to Davis’ unique approach to active management: High-conviction, low turnover, low cost, tax-efficient and fully transparent. He joins the first Let's Talk ETFs of 2021 to go under the hood of Davis’ four ETFs, which now have more than $1B in...

The Coronavirus economy has created a clear dividing line between winners and losers, resulting in wildly divergent market returns for different sectors in 2020. One of the pandemic's biggest winners has been the online sports betting and iGaming space, with people forced find ways of entertaining themselves from the safety of their own homes. One of 2020's hottest fund launches, the Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF (BETZ) has handsomely rewarded early investors, returning 66% in...

2020 has been a banner year for grain futures specialist Teucrium ETFs, with its assets under management more than tripling. Leading the charge since the COVID-19 late March lows have been the Vermont-based ETF issuer's SOYB and CORN funds - powered by record Chinese soybean and corn imports. Teucrium founder and CEO joins Let's Talk ETFs to explain why even with strong recent returns, this may be just the beginning of a prolonged leg up in grain prices. Show Notes 3:45 - Why have grain...

ALPS' Senior Investment Strategy Advisor Paul Baiocchi was early to the ETF party. Before joining ALPS, he was Vice President of ETF Business Development at Fidelity Institutional Asset Management where he helped build and grow the firm’s ETF lineup for six years. Prior to that, Paul worked at ETF.com, building an ETF analytics platform, writing about the ETF industry and moderating panels at Inside ETFs conferences. In the latest episode of Let's Talk ETFs, Paul reflects on the industry's...

XOUT Capital CEO David Barse spent nearly 25 years running active value shop Third Avenue Management before embracing a passive, rules-based indexing approach. His new firm, XOUT Capital, is the indexer behind the GraniteShares XOUT U.S. Large Cap ETF (XOUT). So when David speaks about active vs. passive management, ETF investors should take note, as he comes with a deep-seated knowledge from both sides of this issue. Show Notes 4:00 - David's metamorphosis from active stock picker to...

On the latest episode of Let's Talk ETFs, long-time contributor to Seekingalpha.com, Chaim Siegel, aka Elazar Advisors, takes listeners through his unique bottom-up approach of stock picking in the tech space. Before setting out on his own and launching his Nail Tech Earnings investing service, Chaim spent years honing his craft, working directly with Steve Cohen as an analyst at SAC Capital as well as serving as a portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley and JLF Asset Management. His proprietary...

With the global robotics and automation space expected to quadruple in size over the next five years, it seems like an obvious theme for ETF investors to be over-allocated to. But with the proliferation of funds offering exposure - there are six funds with the word "Robotics" in their names - choosing the right one can be challenging. ROBO Global was first to market in this space, launching its flagship ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (ROBO) all the way back in 2013. ROBO's...

It has not been a good decade for MLP investors. Even with double digit yields, total returns on the sector are at -4% annualized going back to 2010. Alerian’s Stacey Morris believes that’s all about to change as 2021 will see meaningful growth in MLP free-cash-flow and dividends for the first time in years. SS&C ALPS' Paul Baiocchi also joins the conversation and goes under the hood of his firm’s 2 Alerian MLP ETFs, AMLP and ENFR. On this episode of Let's Talk ETFs - the first to focus...

J.D. Gardner started ETF firm Aptus to attack what he terms the "behavior gap" in investing, whereby investors routinely underperform their underlying investments by "performance chasing". Aptus' flagship fund, DRSK, attacks the behavior gap frontally by limiting drawdowns through the use of maturity date bond ETFs and broad index puts. Yet, DRSK has managed to handily beat the S&P 500 in 2020 by taking advantage of the "sporadic asymmetry" offered by buying a basket of stock calls....

Over the last 40 years, U.S. equities have had roughly the same P/E ratio as the rest of the world. Over the last 10, the U.S. has produced massive outperformance relative to its global peers, with valuations becoming increasingly stretched. You actually have to go back to the 1920s to find a period where U.S. stock valuations were this stretched relative to their global peers. Cambria Founder and CEO Meb Faber joins Let's Talk ETFs to explain why his firm's ETF line-up is particularly well...

Rushed to market just 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pacer BioThreat Strategy ETF (VIRS) takes a unique approach to picking potential pandemic winners. The LifeSci BioThreat Strategy Index underlying VIRS selects holdings based on seven different criteria - everything from potential vaccine makers to companies powering the transition to a work-from-home economy. Pacer ETFs President Sean O’Hara joins Let's Talk ETFs to explain why his firm's new ETF is designed to protect investor...

2020 has already seen the quickest bear market sell-off and counter-rally in history. With one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history just six weeks away and another virus wave likely this fall, volatility will remain the key investing story in 2020. So much fear and greed can make even the most seasoned investor abandon well thought out plans, leading to potentially catastrophic results to their portfolio's bottom line. EPB Macro Research's Eric Basmajian rejoins the podcast to...

With his ATAC Rotation Fund (ATACX) up 58% YTD, Michael Gayed explains how he uses historically proven leading indicators of volatility to generate outsized returns. ATAC Rotation employs a tactical risk-on, risk-off strategy that alternates weekly between a mix of stock and bond ETFs based on projections of short-term volatility. With the VIX jumping from 22 to 32 in a little over a week and markets flailing, investors would do well to heed Gayed's central message: Ignore gathering storm...

Larry Swedroe has established himself as a voice of financial reason and one of the world's foremost proponents of evidence-based investing over nearly five decades managing money. His recently updated and expanded best-seller, The Incredible Shrinking Alpha: How to be a successful investor without picking winners, is a well-timed continuation of the argument he's been making for decades: Investors need not do anything spectacular to succeed. Rather than search for alpha, that ever-elusive...

Among the search for non-correlated strategies in the current risk-laden environment, The Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility and Inflation Hedge ETF (IVOL) has stood out from its fixed income ETF peers, gathering nearly half a billion dollars in assets under management and winning the 2019 ETF.com award for Best New U.S. Fixed Income ETF. As the first fund to place a bond convexity strategy within an ETF wrapper, IVOL seeks to hedge relative interest rate movements while providing the...

The economic carnage wrought by COVID-19 has forced many long-time dividend paying stocks to slash their yields, with many more favored dividend paying names at risk of having to follow suit. Reality Shares Co-Founder and CEO Eric Ervin rejoins Let's Talk ETFs and walks listeners through the proprietary DIVCON "dividend safety" rating system that powers his firm's DIVCON Leaders Dividend ETF (LEAD) and DIVCON Dividend Defender ETF (DFND). The objective is simple: Help yield-focused investors...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a massive divergence in performance among thematic ETFs. Among the most pioneering of the thematic ETF issuers, Global X's CEO Luis Berruga joins Let's Talk ETFs to discuss where he sees the greatest opportunities in the current landscape. Some of the themes we discuss - e-commerce (EBIZ), video games (HERO) - will come as no surprise to listeners. Others will. There's an idea here for nearly every type of ETF investor. Show Notes 2:45 - A most elegant...

With 97% of U.S. ETF assets in funds that track an index, and overall assets continuing to grow rapidly, indexing has never been more central to the overall investing landscape. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the months immediately leading up to and following the annual "Russell Recon" - where companies are added and removed from key benchmarks. Catherine Yoshimoto, Director of Product Management at FTSE Russell, joins Let's Talk ETFs to discuss 2020's top trends - and what...

Many investors are surprised to learn that a typical 60/40 stock-bond mix has 85% of its underlying risk concentrated in the 60% of the portfolio allocated to equities. Taking inspiration from the All Weather Portfolio popularized by Bridegwater Capital's Ray Dalio, the RPAR Risk Parity ETF (RPAR) spreads risk evenly across a portfolio comprised of four different asset classes. The objective is simple: deliver risk-adjusted outperformance across an entire market cycle and through all market...