Trillions

While exchange-traded funds have become increasingly popular and people are more familiar with them, there are still aspects of ETFs that—for some—remain shrouded in mystery. So we recently asked our followers on social media to send us any ETF questions they may have or topics they were curious about. We received a ton of responses. 

On this episode of Trillions, Joel Weber and Eric Balchunas answer about 20 of these questions—ranging from whether ETFs will be in 401(k) plans someday to how overnight trading works to our thoughts on some of the new iterations of ETFs, like buffers, return stacking and crypto. 

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Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which were finally introduced earlier this year after intense regulatory scrutiny, have already become some of the most successful ETF launches ever. For months it seemed that spot ETFs for Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, might linger in a similar purgatory — and then, after some back and forth with issuers, regulators finally blessed them. About 10 products began trading in mid-July; they've seen healthy inflows, though Bitcoin ETFs were in a different league.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber welcome stacy-marie ishmael, an executive editor at Bloomberg News who oversees crypto, digital payments and cross-asset coverage, to the podcast. They discuss the differences between Bitcoin and Ether, what happened during the approval process, how the various Ether ETFs compare, what we've learned since their launch, and what this might mean for future crypto ETFs.

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Nvidia's ascent into one of the world's biggest companies was as fast as it was dramatic. The company's startling rise has sparked new ETFs to launch and propelled others to record heights. Nvidia's dominance is also changing indexes and weightings, which can have a dramatic impact on investors—especially when a rebalance gets a little wild.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Athanasios Psarofagis of Bloomberg Intelligence and Emily Graffeo of Bloomberg News about the myriad ways Nvidia is impacting the ETF universe. They also reveal which ETFs have outperformed without a boost from Nvidia.

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Single-stock ETFs seem like an oxymoron: An investing vehicle that usually contains an entire portfolio reduced to just a single company? But whatever skepticism existed when this type of ETF — which are either leveraged or inverse — first launched two years agoCHTK has abated. Traders are hooked on this type of ETF "hot sauce," even if it sounds a lot like gambling. Assets in single-stock ETFs have doubled in assets this year, to more than $5 billion. The most popular such ETF, GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF ($NVDL), takes Nvidia's performance — an incredible upward trajectory of late — and doubles it. (Its daily volume usually exceeds most blue-chip stocks.) You can also go short with the GraniteShares 2x NVDA Daily ETF ($NVD). 

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber explore single-stock ETFs with Will Rhind, the founder and CEO of GraniteShares, which currently has about a dozen such offerings. They discuss how the ETFs work, who uses them, what the risks are, why enthusiasm for a given stock is so important, and where this interesting new category — and the "Vanguard-free zone" — could go from here. 

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So far, this has been a banner year for exchange-traded funds. The S&P 500 is at record highs, inflows keep soaring and investors are taking more risk. BlackRock’s Bitcoin offering even became the most successful ETF launch ever.

On this episode, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber discuss the most noteworthy themes and trends of the past six months with Todd Rosenbluth and Cinthia Murphy of VettaFi. They review what the inflows reveal, how various sectors are performing and which products and issuers have been the biggest winners and losers. They also talk about what to watch for in the second half of the year.

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For the first time in its 49-year history, Vanguard has chosen a chief executive from outside the company. His name is Salim Ramji, who previously served as head of BlackRock’s global exchange-traded fund business. The move comes as Vanguard continues to lead the industry in flows, but the giant has other challenges—such as customer service.

How much should we expect Ramji to change, or leave the the same, in the House that Bogle Built?

On this episode of Trillions, Joel Weber and Eric Balchunas are joined by reporter Silla Brush to answer all of these questions and look at the broader topics surrounding the constantly changing landscape of asset management. 

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The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) was the most successful ETF launch in history by nearly all metrics. For most ETFs it takes years to hit $10 billion in assets. IBIT did it in less than two months. It's now closing in on $20 billion. How much bigger will it get? Who exactly is buying it? And how did BlackRock end up being one of the firms leading the charge on ETF-izing crypto?

On this episode of Trillions, Joel and Eric speak with Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets for BlackRock, about the huge bitcoin ETF launch, the market for these funds, the potential ether ETF launch as well as his career at BlackRock and how he helped the firm evolve on this new frontier.

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While most of the money flowing into exchange-traded funds goes into the cheaper ones, investors are willing to pay up for certain things. And after all, ETF issuers have to pay the bills somehow. Figuring out how to price an ETF so it’s both appealing to investors and generates revenue is one of the more unsung arts of the industry.  

On this episode, Joel and Eric speak with Athanasios Psarofagis, an ETF analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, and Bloomberg reporter Katie Greifeld about BI’s recent ETF revenue study, which includes a breakdown of fee income generated by issuers and individual products. The conversation also touches on whether the rise of passive investing has impacted markets in the way some observers say. 

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The issuer of an exchange-traded fund has one main goal, and that’s to get assets—but being recognized is nice, too. Just like the Oscars, the ETF industry has its own awards show, held by ETF.com every April in New York City. Categories include ETF of the Year, Issuer of the Year, Best New Fixed Income ETF and even a Lifetime Achievement Award. Now that the tenth annual ETF awards ceremony is in the history books, we can tell you that—just like the Academy Awards—there were some notable winners as well as a few surprises. 

Om this episode, Joel and Eric look through a number of winners with ETF.com's editor-in-chief Kristin Myers and finance reporter Lucy Brewster. 

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The music industry took a huge revenue hit when the MP3 came out about twenty years ago but has since found ways to make money. And now there’s an ETF for that too. 

On this episode of Trillions, we speak with David Schulhof, founder and CEO of the MUSQ Global Music Industry ETF, about the stocks in the ETFs as well as the growth of the music industry which includes songs, platforms, concerts and the Taylor Swift economy. We also discuss his career in the music industry and whether music has gotten better or worse.

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