For this episode of ETF 360, ETF Trends’ CEO Tom Lydon and CIO Dave Nadig spoke with Bryon Lake, global head of ETF solutions at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
Watch the Full ETF 360 Episode Here:
Lake opens by discussing how J.P. Morgan believes that last year’s trends will carry over into this year and potentially accelerate even further. These trends include the popularity and record inflows of ETFs continuing into 2022, active ETFs continuing to gain big traction as investors look for new opportunities and outcomes, and the growing popularity of thematics.
“There’s currently about 173 thematic ETFs, about $150 billion in thematic ETFs; we saw that grow by 250% across 2021. I think we’re going to continue to see some of that explosive growth in thematic investing as well,” Lake says.
J.P. Morgan recently launched its ESG fund, the J.P. Morgan Climate Change Solutions ETF (TEMP), to offer a solution for the increasing number of investors looking to engage their money in meaningful ways and align with their values. TEMP utilizes a ThemeBot, an AI technology that analyzes millions of data points across over 13,000 securities and creates an investible universe centered around climate change solutions for the fund.
“We still bring in active management, individuals with discretion that are doing bottoms-up, fundamental research on these individual companies, making sure that they’re evaluating all those companies and that they’re appropriate to express what is frankly a very nuanced view of a theme around climate change solutions,” Lake explains.
Having that human element of active management is something that makes sense for J.P. Morgan, particularly because climate change is such a dynamic and ever-changing space. Having a seasoned professional digging into companies to understand how they interact within their industries and what makes them profitable is a leg up over passive funds that are less flexible.
“TEMP Is the first active, sustainable, thematic ETF in the climate change space, so it’s a first of a kind,” Lake says.
For more ETF 360 videos, visit our ETF 360 Channel.