It's pretty safe to say that 2024 was the best year ever for ETFs. The industry saw record flows of $1 trillion, a record 670 new launches and a 30% jump in assets- not to mention that record smashing bitcoin ETF launch. So how do you top that?
On this episode of Trillions Joel and Eric host a roundtable discussion on highlights from 2024 as well as predictions for 2025 with Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, Vildana Hajric, reporter with Bloomberg News and Athanasios Psarofagis, ETF Analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
Welcome Attrillians.
I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric bell Cheerness.
We're almost there. It's almost twenty twenty five.
Yeah, but is it.
But before we do anything about twenty twenty five, we have to do a year in review episode.
Yeah, especially this year. It was unbelievabe.
Up, this is the most interesting, exciting, best year ever for ETFs. I'm just saying that right now.
There's never been a better year ever. Twenty twenty one was right up there. This was better.
This is remember that movie as good as it gets. Yeah, this is as good as it gets. So everybody, just take a deep breath, savor it.
It just can't be this good every year.
Okay, that makes me really worried about twenty twenty five, but right now maybe feeling Okay.
Listen, the key to life is to enjoy the good times and don't have your mind somewhere else.
Okay, all right, live in the moment. I like it. So to help us process the moments that made up the year, we're going to be joined by Vildona Hirich of Bloomberg News. She's a cross asset reporter, also a frequent guest on Trillians. Todd Rosenbluth, an ETF analyst at Vetify, also a frequent guest on Trains and rounding out our panel, Athanasio ser Vegas, an analyst with Eric at Bloomberg Intelligence, this time on Trillions a Year to Remember Dona Todd, Athan, Welcome back to Trillians. Nice to see you, Thanks for having us.
It's great to be back.
All right, Well, we've got a format for this round robin. We're gonna go around. We're gonna hear everybody suggest a theme that they want to talk about that they think distinguishes this year. Athan, you're in London right now. Good to see you on our screen. Talk to us about what is your number one theme for the year.
Oh, it's I guess the most obvious, but probably the most important, and that's just record flows US past the trillion and inflows. I think we just have to appreciate that number, right, Like when you say a trillion in inflows this year, I think it was like high nine hundreds and twenty twenty one. Obviously we had the market participated in that, but what I thought was even more fascinating. Yeah, so trillion in the US, but every region hit a record this year. Europe Canada, Asia Pacific. So it's just this amazing. What I love about the ETF is that it's just hitting all over the world. It's like transcending geography. So that I think was by far the most Probably the biggest thing to take away from this is that's just been a record all over the world.
And let me add to that with some numbers. Eight and I agree, that's the story of the year. The record was nine hundred and ten billion, give a ticket called a billion depending on what data service you ask, So a trillion is ninety you know, almost ten percent over the record obviously, but here's also something interesting. If you look globally, as Athan was alluding to, the assets went from at eleven trillion to fifteen trillion. That is a thirty two percent growth rate for an industry that's thirty plus years old. Now, the growth rate when ETF started out was twenty five percent because it was small assets easy to grow those numbers when you're small. The next decade was seventeen percent, and so we're predicting ten percent a year going forward to get to thirty five trillion in twenty thirty five. Well, thirty two percent is so beyond what I would ever assume now of that thirty two percent number, about four tenths is from the flows, six tenths is from the market, So the market won't be this good. As I said, this is as good as it gets probably, but the flows, being that big of a contributor, is really strong. That thirty two percent number again astonishing if you had asked me again. We predict ten percent a year going forward, so thirty two is ridiculous.
If there's something can add to that too, just at the issuer level, right, Yeah, while it's a record for the whole industry, it's not just Black Rock and Vanguard, but like seventy percent of the firms have had their best year ever this year, so it's the breath is winding out. So you have several issuers all hitting records this year, which I thought was also really impressive.
And do you want to know, I'm gonna I'm it's gonna quiz you guys, what percentage of ETFs in the US. There's thirty eight hundred, what percent saw inflows this year? Get it between five percent and I'll give you a prize. I'll go with eighty seventy five sixty six, So you don't get the prize, but I was the prize, one of the one of those gold coins that Todd brought I was gonna give you.
We haven't even had a chance to introduce what I brought it.
Todd. I noticed that you brought some gold coins, chocolate gold coins, trying to sway favor.
Listen, I don't think there's a judge and jury on this. The audience is going to decide which of us does the best job.
I'm gonna sample your the chocolate you should.
So this is an early Honkka present for those that can't see this very visual podcast. I have a basket of delt chocolate covered coins.
You talked about everything as baskets when you're in the ATF world. This is just a little bag of chocolate.
It is when it's closed up, it is a basket.
Okay.
Is that Is that a store of value? It is? It is.
There's tangible diminishing because I'm eating the chocolate.
There is tangibility behind this. But I would note these come from Trader Joe's not a sponsor, I don't think. But they're called coins of the world because we are taking it.
Okay, Todd, let's do you next, what's your your theme of the year.
Well, mine piggybacking on what Athan said, but it's VU crossing the one hundred billion dollar marked with assets for or inflows for one individual ETF and IVV, which actually got passed by VU in terms of total assets briefly had sixty billion dollars. That would have been a new record on its own if it wasn't for Vanguard five hundred ETF. So those two ETFs just setting a record is tremendous, is a great sign. Most investors probably start their their ETF journey with a core S and P five hundred based products, so that I think that sets the stage for the next thirty plus years for people who are going to add additional products. So one hundred billion dollars sixty billion dollars, that's amazing.
Think about that.
That's two billion dollars a week into one fund. Two billion for a firm after five years.
On the market. Is good.
So Vanguard again, we just get so bored of Vanguard, we get numb to it. But the numbers they put down are still just absolutely astonishing. Vanguard as a whole company is taking in a billion a day into their ETFs, VU at one hundred. Again, that's doubling a record. I had the meme of Wilt Chamberlain hold up that one hundred, which to me, this is as hard to think this will get broken, you know, like Wilt Chamberlain's record. The only ETF I could see doing it is VU again, but absolutely extraordinary. And it reminds us that as much as we give attention to this sort of hot sauce, shiny objects stuff, some of us most tooche no names, yeah, Eric, the bulk of the blob of money still goes to cheap beta que beta is.
What is the margin between VU and the runner up and it's runner up?
Well, it's current runner up right now is IVV, which is roughly sixty billion dollars.
Now it's fifty four, okay, so it's fifty billion dollars.
It's double the number two basically, I mean that's it's insane.
Yeah.
Why well, mostly because Vanguard's brand for fifty years has been cheap, so they have this strong brand, trusted brand. They're a boy scout in an industry that's seen a lot of corruption. Number two, it's dirt cheap. Three basis points for the entire SMP the S and P kicks so much butt and to get that for like basically no fee and the frictionlessness of it. You just click a button. You own the entire us capitalism in one shot. That's why I'm so bo bearish on this direct indexing and tokenization that it's the best, that's the deal of the century. You're not going to disrupt that.
For a while.
But to me again, I got a reporter on an editor in the room. To me, the story is in VU over IVV by doubling. It's that both of them crossed the fifty billion dollar mark.
So that's it. It's been a success.
I'm going tension todd like, you know, let's talk about tension.
That's a little too kumbaya. I'm with you.
Where's where was Spy on that list?
By the way, Well, okay, so Spy has these big decembers because it taxles Harving. So it's rising quickly. It's number five with thirty billion, but by the end of the month it could be fifty sixty. It's possible. It's VU Spy IVV all above the last year's record. I called them three amigos because they're like always they're like the three that are tracking the S and P. But I could see that, but then SPY would lose some of that in the first quarter because it tax has harvest thing. But okay, but by the way, one thing to watch next year, VU and IVV, probably both around the same time, are going to pass by then it's like which one of those two will be the new king. I think VU separates itself in the year after that, So I think two years from now we're having VU as.
The the undisputed king.
That'll be a big moment.
Black Rock's not gonna let that happen easily though.
Yeah, okay, tensin fil done well.
I was going to add to this, you know, list of great things for ETFs overall, which is that there were five hundred and thirty nine active ETF launches, which is eighty percent of the overall and it was a year of record launches, right, so active, It was a big year for active.
Is that your stat because no, it's not. It should be. I was you should use that.
I have some really good other stats.
Okay, well, yeah, how about that'll be mine. Six hundred and sixty launches. That's record launches, Joel eighty percent of them active. The reason launches matter, and it's part of our support for the thirty five trillion prediction, is that the more launches you have, the more good ideas you have. If everybody is here launching products, one of those or two of those is going to be the next big idea. So the innovation factor is at a record pace. And this year we have an interesting group of big names coming in. You know, Phil Back said ETFs go Hollywood.
I agree.
We had Noriel Rubini launch a ETF, Tom Lee Rick Reader late in twenty three but close enough, Jeremy Grantham, and this Treasury Secretary Scott the Scent is supposed to have an ETF coming out, but he might withdraw because he's Treasury secretary, but he was going to launch one. And I think we could see Bill Ackman at some point launch one.
Here's the deal.
You know, there was a quote in the nineties Michael Jordan was asked about like Utah and this other team. Oh, you're scared it UTA. He's like, look, you could hype them up. Still got to come through Chicago. Still got to come through Chicago. If you want a ring badass, right, that's ETFs. You want the assets you want, flows you want, customers got to come through ETFs, still got to come through ETF. So everyone's going to have to come through ETFs for the most part, minus maybe some hedge funds or private equity if they want to be where the people are.
When you said big names, I thought you were talking about acid managers, I mean those big individual names. But MFS, which launched the first mutual fund ever, or has the oldest mutual fund entered the ETF marketplace a week or so ago, oak Mark, which is a proven manager, so it's hard to count. In fact, I'm not sure I can even name an active manager that doesn't have in the ETF presence, either directly or from a subadvisories.
I can name one Ron Baron, and they're thinking about it.
Well about time.
Yeah that's a fifty fifty some billion matager.
You know, you earn yourself a gold coin, Thank you so much.
MFS interesting because they launched the first ever mutual fund back in like nineteen twenty three or something. So for them to finally, you know, come in is I think. I think everybody is pretty much surrendered at this point. There's a couple hold out's no doubt, but Morgan Stanley to me was the big one.
That was last year.
All right, Vildan, if that was your your that was my extra nonstat stat bring the hammer. Let's hear the real one.
Okay. So it was a really big gear for levered single stock ETFs. I can't believe they haven't come up yet. This is the hot sauce or the super spicy hot sauce, the Ghost Pepper hot sauce.
Right, well, they're all flavors.
The Ghost Pepper is the two X micro strategy because that broke the volatility record. It's the two x micro strategy. JROL has a volatility of run.
Three hundred percent.
That's a rolling twenty year t QQQ, which is triple leverage. QUES is a fifth of that, so it's five times more volatile than three xq's think about.
That's the Ghost Pepper's like a new strain of ghost.
Well, to step back, there's two of them, right, there's two of them. There's there's one from Defiance, there's one from Tuttle and Rex Chairs and they were so big that they were growing by billions in like days basically, where at one point I think Tuttle's was over three point five billion dollars, and that was partly because micro Strategy going up so much post election, but also people are adding tons of money. But then overall for levered single stock ETFs, we had forty five new launches, which is a record, although they've only really been in the US market for a couple of years, but forty five new ones. Now we're starting to see fee wars there as well.
That's crazy.
So it's really it's just I think that was one of the really big stories of the year.
At the beginning of this year, single stock lever gtfs had one billion dollars one point three they have twenty now and like an NVDL two x, Navidia's six billion, that's will ryan from granite shares. That generates like fifty million a year in revenue for them because these all charge one percent, so these are lottery tickets for the issuers. And not only that, Let's say you get a little bit of flows like I don't know, one hundred million, and you're in a stock like Navidia or micro Strategy two x, the asset accumulation starts to grow even if you get no new flows. So the fact that the stocks are going up a lot. These managers are getting paid even with no new customers. It's it's really gonna draw a lot more uh competition. Now we got uh part. The guy was gonna call them parlay shares, whereas you go, you get two x coin plus.
Two x Navidia, two x m M micro.
Strategy plus two x u Tesla, so you could like match these up. And then they have ones that battle each other, so they got battle shares and like parlay shares, it's gonna get crazy.
Cotrol.
This is going to yeah when they launch.
I know from a guy who likes the GARP. The garb bts you both, you guys, listen and tom this is.
Look, there's a reason one hundred billion dollars went into one ETF because people like simple, low cost boring.
That's why we.
See in the team sometimes it's no industry for old analysts droll, Tod and tom Athan. They're they got like they like the large cap growth at a reasonable price stuff. They this is all like crazy to them.
And I understand that.
That said, I think a lot of this is a result of the boringness of people's core. The more you just marry passive and you're like, oh, I'll just wait thirty years. The more you're like, all right, well, I don't want to sit there and watch paint try for thirty years. I want to have a little fun. We'm not going to mess around with some you know, large cat manager because I already owned those stocks. I want something really crazy, something to get my juices flowing. And that's why I think hot Sauce is an ironic byproduct of the rise of boring passive.
Build on it. When you take away micro Strategy and Nvidio, what was the next single stock etf that Tesla?
Definitely, Well, you want something the.
Whole suite, right, It's just like anything that can pop.
That moves a lot, Yes, which is why it was so interesting that somebody filed. Actually I think two issuers filed for Berkshire Hathway, which barely moves, but they filed for two x h.
Does that make it more fun?
No, it makes it way less fun. So you know, the question is who if you're wanting the adrenaline, do you really want to go for something to moose point five?
Yeah?
And also two x micro Strategy in a way is four x Bitcoin, so they which you can't do because micro strategy is two x bitcoin.
These are two x that.
So that's why I also think people are trading it because there's two x bitcoin ets, But why do two x when you can do four? And I'll go to Ethan on this, They've got three x micro strategy. In Europe, They've got crazier stuff there, but nobody cares.
Right, Yeah, it's just that they don't have that sort of gambling culture that they have in They.
They don't like potentially losing money.
There's not many Degen products there.
There's by the way, five x Nasdaq here that no would They've been around for years with no as.
If that was here, it'd be a jillion dollars.
Could you imagine five x Nasdaq? I was salivating.
I was touring around Switzerland this year and like Europe and stuff, and when I went over the hot Sauce part, I was like, so, like, you know, you know how you guys like have like a sports gambling account and like nothing.
I'd see like one young dude maybe.
Smile and I was like, all right, maybe you that's it, but like there was no, it did not resonate there.
People are not into that.
Speaking of the crypto stuff. This is also part of this you know, biggest stories of the year. Eric and James were named coin Desk's Crypto People of the Year, James James Seffert from from Blooming Intelligence and it's just you.
Know a moment I think, so, yeah, they made you know, those penguin NFTs. They made a penguin n FT of my face that was kind of cool.
But did you buy it?
I mean they called us the etf Bros. And I like that.
I've enjoyed my time there. It's an interesting crowd. Like I said, I'm a true Bogel head, so I can't go fully into it, but it's a little you know, there's it's a controversial area still, it's not something that's fully accepted everywhere. But for the most part, I think what was interesting about this year. I was going to bring up a bitcoin but is just the Larry Fink Fidelity. You know, these are people who have a lot of trust and credibility and for them to get behind this with products on their name is it definitely has brought it more mainstream and made it more acceptable and exciting for me and James to be part of that. But I'd say a year ago. It was still kind of getting rid of that SBF stench.
I mentioned it because the bitcoin ETFs were huge, really so huge. I bit the I shares one it had it got over fifty billion.
Right, yeah, that's an info.
It's a crazy.
Less than a year.
Actually, yeah, let me drop a number on this. I'm gonna blow your mind.
Fifty billion dollars in two hundred and twenty one days on the market. The next fastest ETF to fifty billion dollars was thirteen hundred and twenty nine days, so one year versus four years, and that was I E MG. The other thing that's interesting is if you have any given year of ETFs, if your ETF gets one percent of what ibit get got, which is five hundred million, you would probably be in the top twenty most successful launches of the year.
Right yeah, I mean, let's just look at I'm assuming, first of all, this was your second story.
No, I still have a really good one coming out.
This one.
We'll call this the interlude.
We'll call this stealing thunder.
Yeah, interlude.
But the seventh largest bitcoin ETF, which is coin shares pulled in, has nine hundred and thirty million dollars. The eighth largest one from in Vesco. BTCo has nine hundred million, the ninth largest Franklin eight hundred million. Everybody, everybody had success. This was when you guys talked about it as being a race. It has been a race, but coming in ninth place has still been a success for the firm.
Yeah, that was something some people there was. There was the haters that were like, never get approved. Then they were like, well but there'll be no demand. Then they're like, well but some of these are gonna liquidate. There's not enough demand. Now they moved on to all kinds of other stuff. But now it's not the right people, it's it's they just keep moving the goalpost. If you if you hate this area, you're just going to find ways to hate. That's fine. I think the numbers speak for themselves. You can see them getting quieter and quieter. I don't know where all this goals, Joel, but we do think that the bitcoin etifs are probably going to pass gold ETFs and assets because they do act as a store of value, yet they also have that hot sauce quality that gold doesn't.
When does that happen?
So right now, the in the US. Those ETFs have one hundred and ten billion, and goldietfs have one twenty eight so they're only eighteen billion dollars back.
I thought it would take three or four years for them to it's tricking.
Next year it is, it's it might be. I mean, at this rate, every day it's like something new happens.
It's good news.
Look, who knows this is? This is very volatile, unknown stuff. But I do think that the ETFs brought low cost liquidity, no friction, and again they brought cover air cover for the advisors out there who are like, well, Larry Finx is okay, it's okay, all right.
Bil Donna, what's your official number two?
Okay, my official number two? Well, I was going to say, and we forgot to mention. We keep forgetting because no, no, there's just no my number two is coming up. But we we didn't even say Bitcoin crossed over one hundred thousand, which is what's helped these ETOs.
But Trump too, yes, but Trump held yeah, of course.
But but I don't.
Think any of that would have happened had that ETFs not happened earlier in the year, like laid this foundation for you know, permission, basically just a.
String of really astonishing numbers and records and anyway my number two. Yeah for real, I was trying to come up with a topic that I was hoping none of you would would come up with. Yeah, we had so many executive changes at issuers this year. We had Vanguard has a new CEO. H State treat has an Apoglia. She's their executive business officer. I think chief business officer Brian Lake moved to Goldman from JP Morgan. We had huge each turnover so global X. The list goes on. It's just lots of changes happening some because some of these companies are trying to be even more innovative, even more involved, put out even more ETFs and new products. So just trying to change our perspective a little bit from just the record numbers.
Like I like the attempt.
Well, I think it's great because first of all, those are all proven people that have taken their talents and gone someplace else and likely can see the success. But then people are getting moved up within within those respective firms. So Invesco is Brian Hartigan that's taking on an additional role. I couldn'tame each person, but we've seen Travis Spence at JP Morgan again fresh perspectives.
All right, Vell Donna, that was a good one, a slightly different note than usual, and I appreciate that. We'll distinguish it from you know, Athanasias. He only talks about inflows all the time. Todd, what's your number two?
Yeah? He first the everygonality on that.
Well, you set me up to now I can't talk about inflows, but yet I still will.
Okay, So take a little heat off of even there.
Vil Donna's interlude number one was about active launches. I'm going to just talk about active fixed income flows because I obviously we've had success and Eric can fall asleep. But one hundred billion dollars, one hundred billion dollars went into active fixed income ETFs. J Triple A, which is a COLO ETF from Janis Henderson, which was relatively late entrant into the ETF marketplace. We had Fidelity with FBND with over ten billion dollars. We saw Capitol Group what's it all about?
Like? Why?
So we've seen investors long embrace active management within fixed income. We have the FED that finally started cutting rates and then now perhaps might be on pause by the time people hear this because we're recording this before the FED does its meeting, and they've been embracing ETFs, and that's just the marriage of those two things plus such proven asset managers that are now in this space. So advisors are turning to active fixed income ETFs. I think that's just a great opportunity for the experts to help the investors and the advisors.
Yeah, it's it's not necessarily new, but sure. I mean the bond ETFs I think took all that twenty percent more. They had a record too, and bonds haven't done that well this year. They were kind of met, you know, compared to stocks. So for them to have a record that's twenty percent above the old record is pretty good sign when you're not crushing it. JAAA is is a that really did have a good year. But like AG and B and D, what do they have three percent this year or something like, But they took in thirteen percent of all the flows. People love that AG core, you know.
But people also love trying to beat the AG. So one hundred billion dollars for active fixed income ETFs is a great milestone. Is a sign that we're going to see even more success.
Absolutely, and I think you'll see more managers come in as well. They seems to be a slight the bond managers get a little more love than stock pickers pound for pound.
I feel like, all right, Ethan, bring us home, what's your what's your your last theme of the year.
Let's talk about flows again. Okay, I don't have an actual stat but you know, we've been covering this a while, and what I thought was really interesting about this year. Whether or not they launched this year, it's it's not really The point is that there was a lot of categories that came into the spotlight this year. So for example, obviously bitcoin that was one buffer ETFs, yield max ETFs, single stock ETFs, So I can't remember.
One credit credit.
Credit another one that was like talked about a lot. I can't remember, Like normally this would happened like one in like once a year like something like that. But to have all these simultaneously come up in the same year, I thought was really interesting. So Steff, we had been really exciting to cover because you have all these categories that were born this year, buffers to another one like they've been around for a while, but they really like insurging an inflow.
So that's really a stude observation, Like I think we talk about all of those things sort of an isolation. When we step back and have a year in review episode, it's a good moment to be like, wow, look at all of those things in tandem.
So yours truly tried to thread all that together. And here's what I came up with.
The ETF industry has gone from providing beta into solving problems and even further changing your mood. So I almost equate a little pharma action here because whether you're a worried boomer buffers or a bored millennial gen zer, single stock leveraged, they're providing things that are going to change your feelings. So we think that, you know, the new white space is your mind.
That's deep.
Yeah you like that. Yeah, it's a work in progress. I got to fine tune in a little.
Bit PSYCHEDELOGYTF that was out there. That's in Canada, right.
No, there's still one here.
But the point being is, but the reason what Ethan just said is interesting too. Besides bitcoin, they're pretty cheap.
I'm gonna move those aside.
That's like a whole new asset class, but the buffers and the single stocks in particular, they all charge ninety to one hundred basis points. So for people to come in and out of nowhere, create a category in the Vanguardian era that can charge that much.
You gotta study that.
Because we write to our clients a lot who are in this industry like, hey, this is what worked and why, and that's why we're like, maybe don't think about what asset class you can cover, but maybe think about what problem you can solve or what mood you can change.
Hmmm, twenty twenty five, be talking about moods some more.
An you think, yeah, okay, can I give my last one?
You guys hit on a little.
Bit the final interlude, final countdown?
Yeah, mind flicks forward too. Well, there's I'll do a quick too, fir.
Because I want to hear both your all your comments on this. First is what he said. Private credit file.
Every year there is one filing or two filings that are earthquake level, and this year it.
Was the Spider Apollo private credit filing.
There was a couple other Colo private credits, but those are just investing in colos that happen to have private credit in it. The Apollo one is interesting because it's direct private credit and Apollo is part of it. They're massive. The bridging of the gap between that world and the public is major. The CEO of Apollo really wants to do this. It's going to be a baby step. But if they can pull this off and figure out how to make something ill liquid liquid with Apollo's help, man, this is a big deal. This could really disrupt a lot. The private funds market is like fourteen trillion dollars. It's bigger than ETFs M. That is going to get interesting.
Well, I think.
I think it also did spur so the products that we now have in the marketplace bomb blocks having one of them. I think there was a race to get that to the market ahead of the State Street Apollo to ride that tell wind that the market isn't The ETF industry in the market is now focused on getting private credit within the ETF space.
I don't blame them. They they did the right thing.
They moved it out. It's just not quite the same. It reminds me the bitcoin futures ETFs versus Bitcoin spot. You know, to have colo private credit, I don't know. You know how ETF does they want it the real deal. They want the stuff that they want, the real party behind the party.
Well, let's see if the real party actually happens. Let's see if yeah, we get if.
What do you what do you think? Well, what do you think the odds are?
Oh?
I think the I think it'll come to market. I think I think Stage Street and the POLA want to have it come to market. I think it's a focus for them. Will it be Will it be as liquid as we hope it will be? Taking an a liquid asset and making liquid. I'm hopeful that that's the case.
But one thing on this, let's say the private equity or the private credit part isn't that liquid and the fund overall is semi liquid.
We've seen cases.
Of ETF like the Japan ETF is I liquid every day because the stocks don't trade in COVID. The high yield communit ETF HYD traded at a twenty nine percent discount since then taken in money and has had plenty of volume. Like nobody cares. I think people trust the ETF price and the industry, and so I think even if there is like a gap between the supposed nav and the price, I think ETF investor would rather have that discounted perceive discount than go into like an interval fund or some other form that's not quite as familiar and comfortable to them as the ETF.
I think so too.
I just think it's going to require education, and it's going to we might see a.
Delay in the job security for us many.
Yes, listen, we're approaching four thousand children we have to take care of in this industry. That's wonderful.
Well, we'll be watching the new SEC chair and the SEC conversations next year to see how this private credit land.
That should have been my last topic now that I'm thinking of it, because there are three little sub things that new SEC chair you're probably going to see private credit no problem, because they're going to be morebertarian and like Genzer was pretty tight.
I think it's bringing me looser.
The other thing is the ETF share classes, where you can just like bolt on an ETF share.
Class to a mutual fund.
M hmm.
I think that's gonna be like a It's gonna drain money into the ETF.
A lot of people will switch over. It'll make switching easy. Do you think is there any other take on that.
No, I just don't know that the SEC is ready to move forward on it. But we'll see with you know, with a new chair and new leadership, they seem to be well. I would have thought by now we would have seen approval if we had this conversation a year ago, and we haven't. So until we see the I think what they'll probably do is approve a couple of them and see how they work before opening up the door for everybody.
Here's what this whole thing has going for it. It's got these gigantic issues. I think there's thirty five, thirty six that collectively managed like seven trait. These are big, no nonsense companies.
Industry.
It's the industry, and they are close with the ICI, who's close with Washington.
They're going to get this done. There's too much power behind it.
There's just one name, it's Blackrock. There's like once they show up, it's just like, all right, yeah, this is happening. So is there anything more than that that we need to know?
Well, But it's the good thing is that it's not just them, It's it's some of the large mutual fund companies that don't have much of an ETF presence.
But he's saying that, like Blackrock filing for it helps everybody because they got so much muscle.
No.
I agree.
But if the SEC is worried about mutual funds versus ETFs, and the firms that are disproportionately tilted towards mutual funds are comfortable with offering ETFs, I think that should make it more palatable than the largest ETF provider saying, let me offer ETF share classes to my existing mutual funds.
Yeah. Well, Vanguard did it.
They were to fund company, and they did it successfully, So I think there's a precedent. The final thing from the new SEC chair is just when they just when I think I'm actual, they pull me back in. We're gonna see a ton of a coin ETFs x RP Solana h Bar, which I had to look up.
I was like, what even is that?
You're gonna have a gelt et.
They're gonna there's.
Some you know, ones that we shouldn't even name.
I say, gonna lose his mind and so am I I thought it was done.
You guys have no idea. I have to live in this chat with Eric and James every day. But but to that, if I could just add about the private equity thing and these now at coins, and that's what you got to really admire about the industry. Like we're just coming off of this fantastic year, and the industry is not saying let's just take a break like we've had. They're just like, let's push the next frontier, which is private assets whatever.
And that's what you got to love about it.
And I think with your new administration, I wouldn't be surprised to see ETF. They're like completely tied to that, like TARIFFYTF, so they're very opportunistic. I think there could be some we could maybe have another crazy year of filings and launches. So but that's what you gotta love about the industry. They just keep pushing the envelope.
There's a moment where it goes too far.
Well, what would stop all of this and especially the new product is just a really vicious bear market that will cool everything down. But until that happens, I just think that this the spirit of this year is going to just bleed into the next year.
It's gonna it would stop the product innovation perhaps, but it's not going to stop the flows.
You see money going well, I don't think you go to a trillion dollars.
In twenty twenty two, the market was down eighteen percent and they took in six hundred billion, So I think you see. I think the market helps everybody just want to put money into it. But I agree with you, ETF will take in money.
Rainershin Athan, Phil Donna Todd. Thanks so much for joining us on Trillions.
It was great.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks, this is fun. Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you'd like to listen. We'd love to hear from you. We're on Twitter, I'm at Joel Webber Show. He's at Eric Altunas. This episode of Trillions was produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Bye