Pennies from Heaven with Jim Wiandt

On this episode of Pennies from Heaven, Jim enjoys a blast from the past with former ETF.com cohorts Matt Hougan, Dave Nadig and Cinthia Murphy and asks them for their Big Ideas for the year.

Alex Matturri, the former head of S&P’s index business and Deborah Yang, the CEO of Daizy and former head of MSCI’s ESG business discuss and debate the methodology and purposes of ESG índices with Eric Balchunas from Bloomberg and Dave Nadig from Vettafi.

Jim Wiandt and Dave Nadig sit down with Kelsey Mowrey and the team at Motley Fool and get into a little Motley Fool history and talk about why Motley Fool Asset Management decided to switch all of it’s billion dollars in traditional mutual funds to ETFs as well as a deep dive into the challenges of making that happen.

This may be the best discussion on the controversial new crypto ETFs and the regulatory environment surrounding them that we have heard yet. This episode features a lively roundtable discussion moderated by the leading reporter in ETFland, Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg, together with Simeon Hyman Head of Investment Strategies at ProShares who launched the first futures-based crypto ETF, and Leah Wald, CEO of Valkyrie who launched the second. Edelman Financial Engines founder Ric Edelman weighs in with strong thoughts from the advisor investor perspective and Bitwise CEO Matt Hougan makes the case for further innovation. The episode touches on the structural, trading and regulatory nuances of crypto ETFs, as well as the strong appeal and seemingly long road ahead for the launch of a spot bitcoin ETF.

Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas, ETF Trends' Dave Nadig and Gemini's Dave Abner join Jim on Pennies from Heaven this month to predict when a long-awaited crypto ETF will be approved by the SEC, whether government regulation of crypto will reach beyond ETFs, and the use of Bitcoin as a store of value or an actual form of currency.

Bloomberg ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas put the downtime of the pandemic to use by writing a forthcoming book about John C. Bogle, the late visionary founder of Vanguard, who changed how we think about "democratized" modern investing and index funds forever. Listen as Balchunas talks to Jim about what he learned about Bogle, and how "St.Jack's" legacy has continued to speak to millennial and Gen Z investors who are disillusioned with Wall Street.

Jim and ETF Trends' Dave Nadig discuss when Robinhood’s fine print will catch up with it, how better UX design will be the next “grand challenge” of finance, why Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest will always stand apart, and the ongoing conundrum that is crypto funds.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know at ESG and Climate investment, in particular, is the rage in the investing world. According to a Morningstar report from April of this year, sustainability-focused funds have attracted record inflows in 2021 with assets now at $2 trillion. On this episode, you'll hear Jim speak iClima co-founders Gaby Herculano and Shaila Leekha about this strong investor interest in low-carbon investment. The two tell me how they use CO2 avoidance as a metric for decarbonization impact, and the investment opportunities in energy generation at the point of use, from software to electric vehicles, as well as green hydrogen. They also tell Jim about the important roles those industries and sectors will play in innovation, impact, and returns.

It’s an ETF nerd brawl when ETF Trends’ Dave Nadig, Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas and Gemini’s Dave Abner get together on this premiere episode of Jim Wiandt’s “Pennies from Heaven.” Listen to episode 1, “ETF Donnybrook,” as Wiandt and guests duke it out over the future of crypto ETFs and blockchain technology. Listen above.