It was another quiet week for launches as the summer slump continued. Only seven funds launched during the week ending July 28, the same amount as last week. Meanwhile, closures continued their strong trend, with 10 ETF shutdowns announced or completed during the week.
First Trust added two funds to its family of buffer ETFs managed by Cboe Vest. The FT Cboe Vest U.S. Equity Moderate Buffer ETF – July (GJUL) and the FT Cboe Vest U.S. Equity Enhance & Moderate Buffer ETF – July (XJUL) debuted on Monday.
Both funds offer exposure to the price performance of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) via flexible exchange (FLEX) options. They offer protection against the first 15% of losses by the underlying reference asset. Although GJUL comes with a pre-expenses cap of 14.3% on upside performance, XJUL aims to deliver twice the upside performance of the reference asset up to a cap of 11.22%. before expenses.
GJUL and XJUL list on Cboe Global Markets and have expense ratios of 0.85%.
On Thursday, Franklin Templeton launched the second ETF to be marketed under its Brandywine brand. The BrandywineGLOBAL – U.S. Fixed Income ETF (USFI) is an actively managed fund focused on investment-grade U.S. fixed income markets. The fund has an expense ratio of 0.39% and lists on the Nasdaq stock market.
There were additional launches from YieldMax on Tuesday and Friday that provide covered call strategies on individual stocks. Similarly, Global X rolled out a covered call strategy with a growth element that is tied to the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. And PGIM debuted a pair of actively managed fixed income ETFs.
Closures
Four ETFs ceased to trade during the week. They include the following:
- ALPS Hillman Active Value ETF (HVAL)
- TrueShares ESG Active Opportunities ETF (ECOZ)
- Revere Sector Opportunity ETF (RSPY)
- Fount Metaverse ETF (MTVR)
Another four ETFs saw their closures announced. Two funds from AXS Investments, the AXS 1.5X PYPL Bull Daily ETF (PYPT) and the AXS Brendan Wood TopGun Index ETF (TGN) will cease to trade after Aug. 11. And the Harbor Small Cap Explorer ETF (QWST) will no longer trade after the close on Aug. 22
Filings Highlights
There were several filings of note during the week. Another 11 YieldMax ETFs are in the works. Like the existing funds in the lineup, they will apply a covered call strategy to an individual stock, with the targeted securities ranging from Adobe to Target.
Morgan Stanley filed for a total of five funds to be marketed under the Parametric and Eaton Vance brands. The Parametric funds include a dividend equity strategy and a buffered large-cap equity strategy. The three Eaton Vance ETFs target different areas of the fixed income markets.
Madison Funds and Macquarie both filed for funds that would mark their entry into the ETF industry. The actively managed products include five ETFs from Madison covering income and bond strategies and three ETFs from Macquarie covering both equity and fixed income strategies.
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