While money has been leaking out of the traditional open-end active mutual fund side due to high fees and prolonged underperformance, the active ETF space is just starting to fill out.
“Headlines lately say that money is flowing out of active strategies, mostly on the mutual fund side, but the active space is growing, our products have been growing, and more importantly for shareholders performance has been there,” Hamman said. “We have some solid four- and five-star strategies that are starting to find some traction in portfolios.”
For instance, the AdvisorShares Global Echo ETF (NYSEArca: GIVE) may be a popular play for the growing demand for the socially responsible investment theme.
“It’s different. It’s an impact investing strategy – actually bond and equity,” Hamman said. “It’s not a filtering strategy. It’s a proactive strategy in companies and debt that are trying to make a positive impact, and we’ve contributed a portion of the management fee, the basis points, to the global echo foundation. It, in turn, puts money towards charitable events.”
The fund tries to generate long-term capital appreciation with an emphasis on absolute positive returns and a low correlation to traditional financial market indices. The ETF includes a focus on U.S. fixed-income, long-only global equity and alternative long/short trend following strategies. The fund’s portfolio managers allocate to sustainable fixed-income, long-only equity and alternative long/short trend-following strategies over a full market cycle.
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