On this week’s episode of ETF Prime, host Nate Geraci is joined by ETF Trends and ETF Database’s Tom Hendrickson to highlight the top 10 ETFs experiencing year-over-year engagement growth on their platform. CFRA’s’ Todd Rosenbluth also joins Geraci to offer perspective on record ETF flows, new launches, the possibility of a bitcoin ETF, and more. Plus, US Global’s CEO, Frank Holmes, discusses the state of the global airline industry and the US Global JETS ETF (JETS).
To start things off, Hendrickson arrives with a top ten list of ETFs with the biggest gains in traffic year-over-year on the ETF Trends & ETF Database websites. While an old school method of sorts, the list provides valuable insight into where advisors seem to be concentrating most of their research efforts and how that has changed over the pandemic year.
Some of the funds featured on the list include the Siren Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN), the iShares MSCI USA Value Factor ETF (VLUE), the iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust (GSG), and the MicroSectors™ US Big Oil 3X Lvrgd ETN (NRGU).
See also: ETF Prime: Tom Hendrickson Discusses His ETF Journey
In terms of what connects these funds, Hendrickson points out how several these top-researched ETFs skew toward high performance over the past year and how that indicates advisors are attempting to orient their clients toward the themes and strategies that have shown success, while avoiding what hasn’t worked. Aggressive investors may be driven by headlines, but advisors have worked hard to maintain more level-headedness.
As Hendrickson states, “Advisors are making sure they understand the space. They know the pitfalls of it. There’s probably some demand on the client-side. And if there’s a very small sliver of that aggressive ‘play money’ part of the portfolio that’s not near the core, there’s probably some that drips in here so the advisor can talk intelligently about where to stick to the knitting, but not get too infatuated with any of the shiny things.”
Following Henrickson, Rosenbluth joins in to cover many ETF topics. With the number of launches and high flows this year, there’s plenty of ground to cover, specifically when looking at which trends seem to be most occupying the biggest mindshare among investors–including thoughts on when, if ever, the SEC will approve one of the many bitcoin ETF applications on its desk.
Later on, Holmes covers the JETS fund, one of the biggest ETF stories last year. Assets had grown from $35 million in March 2020 to over $3 billion by the year’s end. Earlier this year, the fund has crossed $4.5 billion in AUM. JETS’s trajectory has much to do with retail investors piling into the fund, betting on recovery once the pandemic had subsided. At the same time, institutional giant Warren Buffett was exiting airline stocks. That set up a bit of a competition between as to which camp would be correct. Holmes delves into all of this for his portion of the conversation, along with thoughts on economic recovery and what to consider regarding the delta variant.
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