Trillions

BlackRock and Vanguard collectively own about 15% of every US company, but are they voting their shares in a way that aligns with investors in their funds? One new exchange-traded fund company, Strive Asset Management, says they aren’t, claiming they’ve gone against their fiduciary duty by becoming too “woke” and forming an “ideological cartel.” N...

Three years ago, Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber went to Jack Bogle’s office in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and recorded an episode of Trillions . That chat helped inspire Balchunas’s new book, “The Bogle Effect,” about the Vanguard founder’s influence on investing and the financial industry.  On this episode of the podcast, Balchunas an...

This past year has reminded everyone why they’re called “emerging” markets. But it’s gone further this time, with investors questioning whether they even want to own anything in countries ruled by authoritarian governments, such as those in Russia and China. The conversation, in other words, has evolved.  On this week’s episode of Trillions , we recorded live from the Exchange conference in Miami...

Nobody deserves the nickname Mr. ETF as much as Reggie Browne, principal of GTS and a renowned market maker. He's had an amazing behind-the-scenes vantage these past few decades because almost everyone launching a new ETF comes to ask for his blessing—and seek his seed capital.  This special episode of Trillions was recorded in front of a live audience as a Bloomberg New Voices event. Eric and his...

If ETFs were living creatures, they might be cockroaches—they can survive almost anything. And yet Russia's invasion of Ukraine has presented a rare test. The VanEck Russia ETF, or $RSX, has seen its trading halted; the product holds shares of Russian companies, many of them in the energy and financial sectors. Investors may end up recovering only a fraction of their exposures; retail traders who...

One of the best-performing categories since the beginning of last year has been commodities. Everything from oil to wheat to palladium to gold is up, due in large part to inflation worries. But how much room is there left to run? And how big a portion should commodities make up of a portfolio?  We discuss these questions and more with Mike McGlone, commodities strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence...

Everybody has a friend (or three) who's gone "full crypto." So Joel’s ears perked up when a friend from high school and college, Char Boger, told him about her interest not in Bitcoin — the more common refrain — so much as publicly traded Bitcoin-mining companies. On this episode, Eric and Joel venture into Bitcoin mining by welcoming Boger, a DIY investor and soccer mom, to the podcast as well as...

It looks like the "easy money" days of the last two years may soon end as the Federal Reserve readies to raise interest rates and fight inflation. Markets are already off to a rocky start; monitoring ETF flows shows how assets are being repriced and how investors are repositioning their portfolios. But is this temporary or the beginning of a new regime? What's the 40,000-foot view for ETF investor...

Everybody loves the 60/40 portfolio. And why not? It's worked really well for a long time, especially the past decade when both stocks (the 60) and bonds (the 40) went up. Yet investors fear the current inflationary environment could push both down. Enter “return stacking,” which attempts to solve this conundrum. Investors get the standard 60/40 allocation, only it’s leveraged in a way to add dive...

What do copper miners, the metaverse and carbon credits all have in common? Absolutely nothing, except they are all tracked by ETFs that made Bloomberg Intelligence's 22 ETFs to Watch in '22 annual report. The report, which is published each December, features ETFs that the ETF research team is thinking about, obsessed with or taps into a big trend or theme.  On this episode of Trillions, Eric and...

It will be tough to beat this year for ETFs, which saw record flows of nearly one trillion dollars as well as 450 new launches. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 returned an absurd 26%. Can this all this carry on and be repeated in 2022? Or should we brace for a much tougher landscape?  Eric and Joel speak with Katie Greifeld of Bloomberg News and Todd Rosenbluth of CFRA about 2022 including flows, crypt...

While the media — us included! — bestows a lot of attention on “shiny objects” in the investment world, almost all the real money goes to the massive firms such as BlackRock. The world’s largest asset manager is fast approaching $10 trillion assets under management, almost a third of which is in ETFs — many of them low-cost veterans. Eric and Joel speak with Salim Ramji, the head of BlackRock's gl...

The day that Mark Zuckerberg announced he was changing the name of Facebook to Meta Platforms, the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF ($META) found a new trajectory. Since then, the ETF—which holds companies such as Nvidia, Roblox, Unity, Microsoft, and, well, Meta—has seen assets grow 6-fold and volume jump 50-fold. Much like $HACK, which also benefited from being the right idea at the right time, META...

A new batch of ETFs seeks to appeal to right-leaning investors who want an alternative to "woke" Corporate America and ESG activism. While political-themed ETFs aren't a new idea, they've never really managed to attract meaningful assets. With Americans more polarized than ever before, could this be the moment that these ETFs actually find an audience? Eric and Joel speak with Bloomberg Businesswe...

The quest for a bitcoin ETF has lasted more than eight years. Countless filings have ended in rejection. Then, finally, it happened—the SEC allowed a bitcoin ETF to come to market, albeit one that tracks futures as opposed to holding bitcoin. The unlikely winner of this race? ProShares, whose ETF $BITO broke all kinds of records for a new launch. Valkyrie's version, $BTF, was also approved.  On th...

ETF strategists are professional investors who create model portfolios that financial advisers can bring to their retail clients. You can think of them almost like chefs — experts who know how to combine the right ingredients into recipes that, if everything goes as planned, can achieve a desired outcome. On this episode — a special episode that coincides with the debut of their new Bloomberg Quic...

Exchange-traded funds have a special super power: tax efficiency. Investors pay taxes when they sell, but not when others in the fund sell. Yet that super power is suddenly in jeopardy. A recent bill proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore) would repeal a tiny section in the tax code that allows for ETF's in-kind creations and redemptions to be non-taxable events.  On this epis...

Uranium ETFs are the among the best performers the last two years. Prior to that, they’d been in a decade-long bear market after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011. But between growing acceptance of nuclear power for a carbon-free future and spiking prices with a supply shortage, you have the makings of a breakout ETF category.  On this episode of Trillions, Eric and Joel speak with the two pe...

Just as Steve Jobs didn't invent the computer, Jack Bogle didn't invent the index fund. The first index fund was actually launched back in 1971, about five years before Bogle and Vanguard brought it to the masses.  On this week's Trillions, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the index fund with a conversation with John "Mac" McQuown, who worked with the head of Wells Fargo and a dozen academics...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has all but made clear it will probably approve Bitcoin exchange-traded funds that hold Bitcoin futures, versus ones that hold the cryptocurrency itself. This has sparked a wave of new filings which, if approved, could hit the market by November. But how do they work, and how will investors respond to them? On this week's Trillions, we get insight into t...

ETFs have already broken their annual inflow record—and summer isn't even over yet. The pace of flows has jumped from $2 billion a day to more than $4 billion a day. Some 1,800 ETFs are taking in cash. So what's behind all the action? On this episode of Trillions, Eric and Joel speak with Invesco's John Hoffman, who heads the company's ETF and index business in the Americas. They discuss why the i...

Everything in the market is at or around all-time highs, yet the market feels fragile at the same time. Whether it's the delta variant or inflation, there's always something to worry about.  On this episode of Trillions, Eric and Joel speak with Bloomberg Intelligence's chief equity strategist (and Eric's boss!), Gina Martin Adams. They talk about her macro views, inflation, value vs growth, the F...

In late May, Engine No. 1 shook Corporate America. Despite owning just .02% of Exxon Mobil — not long ago the world’s most valuable company — the little-known activist investor was able to install three new directors on the company’s board, an advance that could finally make the energy giant confront the challenges of climate change. Hot off that win, Engine No. 1 issued an ETF that allows all inv...

One of the more colorful aspects of the exchange-traded industry are the tickers. The best are stuff of legend; others are totally forgettable. But who's in charge of these three- and four-letter identifiers? How are they reserved? Do you own them or rent them? Can you sell them?  Joining Eric and Joel on this episode are a squad of experts assembled to nail down the facts once and for all: Mike V...

With meme stock mania in full bloom again, many are asking why there isn't an ETF to play it. While there is some debate over whether a meme ETF is possible at all, there is an ETF out there that gets pretty close and counts AMC and GameStop as its top two holdings. The ETF is the SoFi 50 ETF (SFYF) which tracks the top 50 stocks that are held by the retail traders who use SoFi's brokerage platfor...