The first exchange traded fund (ETF) to be truly actively managed is finally hitting the scene today.
The new fund is from Grail Advisors and will consist of names that the managers of the ETF have chosen based on research, reports Shefali Anand for The Wall Street Journal.
The Grail American Beacon Large Cap Value (GVT) will be managed by three veteran mutual fund and institutional subadvisors, reports Matt Hougan at Index Universe. The ETF’s goal is to outperform the Russell 1000 Index, but it won’t track any specific benchmark when selecting its names.
While there are other ETFs that are billed as actively managed, it has meant that the stocks within those funds aren’t bought just because they mirror an index. In those ETFs, run by InvescoPowerShares, stocks are chosen through a quantitative process and have limits on how often they trade. The new Grail funds have no restrictions on management activity.
William Thomas, CEO of Grail Advisors LLC, says that the new Grail ETF marks the “next step of the ETF revolution.”