The ETF Experience

Bill Kelly, CEO of the CAIA organization and self-described evangelist for alternative investment education and investor due diligence joins Phil to talk all things alts. The discussion includes:

• Bill's background and why he joined the CAIA association
• CAIA's mission and thought leadership
• What is an alternative investment?
• The viability of Hedge Funds as an investment vehicle
• CAIA exam material
• The stacking initiative
• Liquid alternatives as a growing segment in mutual funds and ETFs
• Giving back
• Financial Data Professional (FDP) program

Phil and Charles enjoy a Manhattan to reflect on three years of Exponential ETFs, tell the company origin story, and explain what an ETF sub-advisor does. [Replay from April, 2019]

Ben Hunt Co-Founder and partner at Second Foundation Partners & Author at Epsilon Theory explains how pricing power has evolved in the financial services industry and explains how narratives are formed. This is the first part of a breathtaking conversation between Ben and Phil about how the financial markets are being turned into government utilities right before our eyes. This part of the discussion includes:

• Ben's experience in academia
• Why Phil and Ben were each destined to end up in entrepreneurship
• Being right versus making money for clients
• Anatomy of a short seller
• Being early versus being wrong
• The market not rewarding deep work and the disconnect from intrinsic value
• The transformation of capital markets
• Pricing power: client ownership
• Pricing power: intellectual property
• Pricing power: government collaboration
• The narrative machine

Kathleen Moriarty, Partner at Chapman and Cutler, and the lawyer who spearheaded countless ETF innovations joins Phil to talk about the legal and regulatory process. Kathleen shares stories from her career and jumps into several of today's most important legal and regulatory issues. The discussion includes:

• Launching SPY and early expectations of the fund
• Waiting seven years for leveraged ETF approvals
• The forthcoming ETF Rule
• Bitcoin ETF – where and why it is being held up, and expectations going forward
• The GLD approval, and similarities to the Bitcoin process
• Non-transparent ETF approval and ramifications to the industry
• How Kathleen would improve the regulatory & market structure
• What it is like to change law firms

Phil heads to Huber Financial in Chicago to meet with their CIO, Phil Huber to talk about factor investing, blogging and more. They discuss:

• Providing client transparency through the blog
• Mixing active & passive strategies
• Having conviction in factors during cap weights run
• How the bps and pieces blog got started
• Why simple is an over-rated concept
• Phil's investing cheat sheet
• Working with his father
• Wholesaling and the transition in distribution in the industry
• Why he loves wrestling

Oliver Renick from TD Ameritrade Network joins Phil to talk about how new media programming is shaking things up the financial media, and how TD Ameritrade Network is using digital tools to provide innovative content. They discuss:

• Digital media
• Utility of content
• Traditional media and the traditional television format
• Long-form content versus quick hits on social media
• Market skewness and Oliver's take on economic policy
• Bitcoin as a measure of overall risk appetite

Ben Johnson, Director of Global Research at Morningstar joins Phil for a deep conversation about career and ETFs. They discuss:

• After a false start in architecture, Ben discovered finance
• Investing lessons from collecting baseball cards as kids
• Morningstar's ETF rating approach, including classifications
• Persistence of top rated funds and predictive value of the ratings
• How to rate portfolios of ETFs, and Morningstar's new portfolio rating service
• Ben defends market cap weighting, Phil makes the case that investors can do better
• Morningstar's conference and why the ETF and mutual fund conferences were merged
• The outlook for non-transparent ETFs
• The obstacle Ben had to overcome to move his career forward

Phil heads to the Arizona forest to talk to "Random Roger" Nusbaum about ETFs, blogging and being a fire chief. The discussion includes:

• Discovering ETFs early on
• The sweet spot for thematic ETF investing
• Correlations in up/down markets
• Active versus passive "does not matter"
• How active and passive can coexist in portfolios
• Buying closed end funds
• Incorporating bitcoin into broad portfolios
• The ETF Maven blog
• Roger's health tips

Catherine Wood and Tom Staudt from Ark Invest join Phil to talk about the early days of Ark Invest and how they built their business. Cathie tells the story of her eureka moment when she had the idea for disrupting the asset management industry and how she battle-tested the idea. Tom tells us how he met Cathie and ultimately got an offer letter filled with exclamation points! Cathie and Tom talk about the early lean years, how the firm pivoted, and how her conviction and confidence in the firm and in her bold calls has never wavered. Cathie reveals how she manages criticism from twitter trolls and what it's like to become a meme, and being memed. The conversation then moves to copycat funds and Tom explains how imitation from big firms is a form of validation.

Craig Lazzara from S&P joins Phil to talk about the growth in factor investing. Craig shares highlights from the latest factor research from S&P which leads to a discussion about chasing factors, the crowding effect, and whether choosing factors is different than actively choosing stocks. Craig then explains why S&P constituents are chosen by committee. The conversation continues to SPIVA and performance of active managers during down markets. Craig talks about the lottery effect and then Phil talks about the Winner's Curse. Finally, Craig explains why the bow tie became his signature look and what job he would love to have if he could not work in finance.