As with humans, death is a part of life in the exchange-traded fund industry. There have been about 150 closures this year, which may be a bit surprising given how almost everything is up in the markets. So what’s behind this year’s class of liquidated ETFs? And what does it mean for investors?
On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber dig into the stories and answer the “why” behind some of the closures in 2024. On hand to assist is Vildana Hajric, a cross-asset reporter for Bloomberg, and Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi.
Welcome are Trallians.
I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Belchernas.
Eric, it's the time of the year where everybody gets crazy costumes for Halloween and we have this annual tradition of sorts on trillions where we talk about the ETF Graveyard. Every time this time of year roll's around.
We do.
It feels right, and it's also good to look at what didn't work and do a post mortem, why did something not last? Sometimes these are shockers, and sometimes these are totally expected, and some you just don't even notice, you know, they just fade into oblivion and next thing you know, you're in your team chat and you're like, what in the hell happened to this?
And you pull it up and it's liquidated. And that happens all the time, Joel.
So this year there's about one hundred and fifty liquidations which were already make it the third biggest year of liquidations. It's only got i mean still got a shot to be the second and possibly the record, but we're in launches. This is crushing the record. So the gap between launches and liquidations is actually pretty wide. Sometimes that gap shrinks when the market's really rough because there's more liquidations, less launches. But I think that gap being wide also points to how great the markets are. I mean, everything's up, gold, bitcoin, stocks, bonds, name it. You know, it's having a good year. So which tells me if you close this year, you.
Must really be suck and wind. You know what I mean?
All right, So to help us take a tour of this year, if.
You close this year, you have major issues.
It's gonna it's a spooky laugh there from Eric. Yeah, okay, So to help us take a tour of this year's ETF graveyard, were joined by Vildana Hadric Across, asset reporter with Bloomberg News, In Bluth, an ETF analyst with Verify, and Athanasios Sara Vegas, an ETF analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, this time on.
Trillions the ETF grad.
Todd vil Donna, Athanasios, Welcome back to Trillions.
Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us.
Nice to see you guys.
Okay, Eric, very high level. Were there any big takeaways other than the numbers that jumped down to you? What about themes or issuers or anything anything else specific.
You know, I was looking through the closures and it was just so so much variety. If there was one thing that I was shocked to see so much of it was international, which kind of makes sense because of all the things I said doing so well, one thing that isn't doing great is international. It's okay, but some countries have really just been like struggling for this whole. Like you know, in the US, everything's so wonderful and bullish, but not every country's like that. So there were a good degree of international ones. Definitely some sustainable esg as we predicted before it was cool, and then like some thematic ETFs, you know, like work from home, that kind of stuff that you know already feels kind of dated. That's generally what I've found in here, but you know, you look through here, there are some there's much more than that, but a very diverse group of ETFs here. I suppose one common thread would be that most of them would be very tiny allocations in your portfolio. None of these are like big vanilla stuff.
All right, Todd, you brought some candy, I did. There's a candy pack on the table. We're gonna be very careful not to touch too much of the candy pack. But it's a combo of kit Kat, Twizzlers, Reeses and Hershey fees on. How do you feel about this selection of chocolate that Todd brought.
I'm not thrilled with it.
I guess it's candy. It's more than chocolate. What's the what's the high?
Swizzlers are no good? They are the same category for me as Swedish fish, which I think are Yeah.
Okay, So there's something about red chewy stuff that you.
Let's say, your trick or treating. You go to his house. He shows you this basketfull that you're allowed to pick. Do you just walk away? Yeah? Yeah, for sure. I like, you know, thanks, And then what would you say if that happened?
I would say, if you invite me someplace, I'm going to bring a present, and you don't insult the present that shows up front, You're gonna get a lecture when you when you walk away, and when I walk back out of the Bloomberg office, thanks for hosting me. You can then talk about the candy all you want. I'm gonna have the races because those are delicious.
Okay.
The kit Cat is not bad?
Okay?
All right, So there may be some candy that we bestow during this run Todd. Do you have a couple ETFs off of this year's list that you'd like to discuss?
Well, I like that Eric front ran this by naming one of them, So I'm not going to use that work from Home ETF that was on my list because he already took He already covered that, so I don't. Since I think I only get a couple of bites at the kit kat, I'm not gonna waste it on that. So I'm going to group a couple of them together if I can. I think there were three cannabis ETFs that closed Global X, Cannabis POTX, the Axis Cannabis ETF THHCX, and Subversive Cannabis ETF, which I think just launched a year beforehand or just came to market LGLZ. We saw a hope with MJ when it converted, and we saw advisor shares have success with cannabis thematic ETFs, and then we had eight or nine of them relatively quickly. Now we have a lot fewer because they're in the graveyard those cannabis ETF so MSOs is still about a billion dollars I think roughly nine hundred million in assets, So there is a leader clearly in this space. But three ETFs just didn't make the cut.
So you think that speaks to the there was just saturation, and now we're to a point where the winners have emerged and the losers are backing up.
Yes, I think there's a race to get into an ETF space and try to differentiate, certainly in the thematic world, all taking a slightly different approach, and then the market decides a couple of years later who's gonna make it work and who's not gonna make it work, And three three thematic ETFs, three cannabis ETFs didn't survive this year.
I would say that some of these were real late. You know, if you're in a tiny category and you're like third or.
Fourth, you got a shot.
But if you're like eleventh or twelfth, unless you are bringing something really novel, I mean, even my shares will struggle at that rate. It's just the pond is just too small. There's only like three fish in there. You can't be like the eighth fishermen. It's just too little, so too little, too late, dollar late, no dollar short day late.
Okay, Todd, I thought, I think that's a really interesting observation. Uh, what other observations did you muster?
Yeah, I guess I'll I'll stick on the international theme that Eric talked about again. Global Actually they stand out as first of all, as a firm that closed the number of funds they I guess finally is the word I would use closed their Chinese sector suite of products. So there was the global X China Infotech ETX ETF excuse me, chik, the global X China Financials ETF CHIX, and I think six or seven other ones. I didn't write them all down or type them all down here. Sector investing is very popular in the United States, the sector spiders the Vanguard suite of products. It's not popular investing outside the United States. So China was out of favor in general. But slicing up the Chinese market in individual sectors, I don't think that ever took off, and global X finally decided they were going to shut the shut the door on those products.
One thing about that, I will say, when you see a product close and you look at the market and you're like wow, because the market's been down four or five years, I almost feel like that's a signal to buy. Because China just went on a tear. So this thing and you know, Athanasius and I have these different framings for things. And there is this sort of group of ETFs that seem to like they liquidate right before their number comes up.
We've talked about this before.
We can't find a metaphor for it. Somebody said, oh, leaving the movie right before the good part happens, or you know, sometimes they get recycled.
We call that the Lazarus list.
But there is a group like the short Squeeze ETF liquidating like three months before the game stop stuff.
It happens occasionally.
If that China Healthcare ETF we're around, I bet it gets a couple of bites because there is a feeding frenzy in China right now. So it's interesting looking through these for maybe by signals.
Yeah, I just think I think there's a need for I think there's demand for China ETFs. And Kweb is shown that there's success in a targeted China ETF. I didn't list it here. I don't know the ticker, but there's a China Utility ETF. I don't think the American investor is going to be moving into that one anytime soon. So what's interesting to me is sometimes we'll see a firm just decide we're going to cut the whole suite as opposed to just pulling out an individual one. And I think that's certainly the case with global X.
Can I bring up one of the global X the close which is interesting, which was the Nigeria ETF. So this ETF I have a long history with this fund. First of all, I always just thought, Wow, this is how far ETF can go. They can get to Nigeria. It was like, wow, we get you know, anything with an ETF. And then over the years, like when I joined BI, they were like, oh, do some more modeling and stuff Like I was like all right. So I would have this report where I would look at ets by lowest price to earnings ratio to be like, hey it's got a low PE, maybe it's a good buye. And this is how I learned the hard way that like a low PE doesn't necessarily mean it's a good bye. So the Nigeria ETF would always be lowest. It would have a P of like four, right, Like that's like the S and P is like what twenty five? Yeah, So you're like so I was like oh, maybe the Nigeria and it would go to three. So this Nigeria ATF is such a great lesson in like, no matter how low you think the basement is, there could be like a cellar door to that too, Like it never ends with skeletons.
And but nobody ever bought the ETF. I mean, I know other people might have seen that.
Never went on a run, right, it never got out of the basement. It only went to another basement.
I'm trying to make a Halloween joke here.
I'm trying someone. I'm throwing out so much stuff for you guys.
The classification. There's like the tomb and then there's the headstone. You know, we could be we could we could have some.
More fun with us.
Okay, Todd, run rund it out. What's your what's your last observation?
All right, well my last.
There'd be more, I'm sure, but yeah, last one.
The last one I just want to highlight is the Tickers Journey Jr. And why it's the ALPS Global Travel Benefit Sherr's ETF because Vetefy is actually the was the index provider behind it.
And wait, wait to make this about yourself.
Well, I'm not making it about myself. I'm in the Bloomberg office. I imagine that we're gonna hear about some Bloomberg index based products.
They're all really great, They're all really good.
They have they none of them have ever none.
That you think we're gonna like subtly promote all of our own stuff.
Well, the reason this caught my eye was we I think we were on together in the past talking about jets. So the jets ETF, which soared in demand around just as the pandemic was happening. It was a three billion dollar RETF. It's now a billion dollar RETF. We just haven't seen demand for travel related ETF's Journey just didn't survive despite having exposure to airlines and other travel related areas. And so I don't think people know of vetify as an index provider. So figured i'd shouted out that we lost one of our children earlier this year.
Journey may be gone, but don't stop believing.
It's gonna say there's a travelers.
Is anybody not think of a Journey song when they see that ticker.
It's like I was going to say, maybe it was the wrong ticker, because you know, people were associating it with.
Music and there we now have those.
It's also honestly like there's five or six of these traveling you even though one the first one from Invesco.
Probably doesn't have that much an assets. That's a tough secker.
Yeah, it's a it's a narrow theme.
Okay, Bill, Donna take us through the graveyard with flashlight.
What did you find that's really good?
Yeah.
I tried to group them, as you guys did, into categories. So to continue Todds, there's a bunch from the pandemic that closed that were really emblematic of the pandemic. So you mentioned the Work from Home Fund, Eric, that's I w f H. I work from home maybe, but the I because it's Eye Shares, it only got like two point nine million dollars.
So I don't know.
It's just interesting to see, especially in I Shares Fund clothes, and they did have a couple of closures GERM g R M Amplify Treatments, Testing and Advancements ETF also only got like ten million dollars, and then last year at the end of last year we had m R n A clothes I think, so just you know, the pandemic era is really over, it's over.
Yeah.
I like GERM was during during COVID, GERM had the most hardcore vaccine type companies. What was the other one that was competing with Germ that they put out and it was all full of like it had like Netflix in it, Bug or something.
Somebody else put out put out one.
That was like yeah, GERM was Pacer, right, no, amplify amplify. Then Pacer had one, but I forgot the ticker.
Pacer had one and it had like it was very oh, it was called the virus v I r S. So it's interesting. These are great one two study with like how to make sure to do your homework.
VRRS was like broad.
It was like, hey, let's put Netflix in there because more people will be home watching Netflix.
That's a stretch, right.
GERM was like hardcore and it gave like Maderno and some of these companies that weren't quite a big waiting a big waiting, And I actually thought it was the perfect ETF to play the COVID and the sort of medical response. But VRS got a little more of the assets. Now they're both liquidated, like neither of them could like turn that whole pandemic into success.
And even the work from Home, by the way.
WFH, which was the original that has twenty four million. So like almost everything pandemic related just gonevie one.
I just said I like germ. Is that I'm so thrown by the fact of I'll.
Be honest with you, I do like germs.
I'm a fan of putting, you know, being natural out there, letting the germs come in your system, and giving your immune system practice.
So in a way, I do like germs.
Okay, I've been fighting a coll for a little while. Would you like a sip in my soda?
I'm not that hardcore, but I generally open to germs.
Alright, this is fascinating, all right. My second category is I tried to look for the same issuer liquidating funds, and so if I had five liquidate and all of them had really really good tickers B YOB be your own boss, ETF which is a gig economy, tf E, n r G which is smart energy, t WEB which is web three weekly, w k l Y was a weekly dividend ETF, and t G i F a weekly income ETF, and all of those, I mean, they just had some such good tickers, very little money in them.
So what do you think.
Was it just clearing house? Just like, let's look at the bottom of the barrel and close up shop.
Well, I'm looking here and it doesn't look like you know. Look, if you're a thematic ETF acute ETF, you need two.
Things to happen. To get assets.
You need a shiny object moment. I don't think any of these really went to the stratosphere. The second thing you need is when everybody's looking at you in the sky like a shooting star. They got to think, oh, yeah, I know a guy did this, or I saw a video of a robot doing a summersault. This must be real. You can need the imagination to lock in with the price. And I don't think any of these had either of those. I mean, be your own boss, gig economy, I mean maybe there's a little of that, like oh, I've seen some people, but like, that's why I think AI and Robotics is the most powerful theme right now, because it does have these nice pops and everybody has starting to see AI touch their lives or videos of stuff, and those two things together I think are a powerful combination for theme. If you don't have both of those or at least one of those, you're probably gonna fail.
I just think they didn't commit to that. They still haven't committed to the ETF space so far. I mean, they've have a brokerage platform that appeals to a younger investor base, but that's all that. I think their efforts are to try to tap into that base, as opposed to fully embracing the ETF community and the marketing efforts that are needed to have distribution.
On the flip.
Their SOFI Select five hundred has about a billion, and I agree they're not out there that much, but that so FI five hundred is a much more like broad appealing fund versus like the Beer Own Boss and byob by the way, is not known for beer and Boss move for bring your own beer.
That's a whole other issue with that.
One thing I was gonna add about the Donna's picks that I like about. I love how opportunistic the industry is, right so work from home, work from home ETFs, trade war ETFs, mag sevent ETFs. But you gotta be careful with that because once that trade fades, there's this risk of closure. But I love that they can jump on an idea really quickly. Yeah, and this brings me up to K pop. So K pop is not on the list, but in our team chat we troll Ethan constantly because just the fact that K pop still exists bothers him. He thinks it should have been gone by now. It's down like seventy percent since it launched or something crazy. It's got no assets and it just keeps going. I think the guy we interviewed the guys started this is not his main thing. He's off doing all this.
I think he just forgot he launched it, and it just it exists to bother him.
Well, man, I love that. Maybe next year Ethan, uh Bill Donald bring us home. What was the what was your last one?
More set from the same issuer, and it's Subversive Capital. So you guys already mentioned l G LZ the cannabis ETF, but they closed a bunch of other ones K CAL K c A L which is food security sane really good ticker s A n E. It's the mental health ETF, the legalized and then d k RB which was a decarbonization ETF. They charged a lot all of them and just garnered just so little in assets, like five hundred thousand dollars per So those are really interesting because Subversive has two other Congressional Trade tracker ETFs crews and Nance kr U Z n A n C. Those have flows and Nance n A n C is actually beating the S and P five hundred this year, which is really interesting. So those are those are still going just I guess these four couldn't couldn't really garner attention.
Interesting, All right, they've done it for your first You get.
A kick cat, which is thank you so much, your favorite of those options that Todd gave you.
Uh again, I'm going to give it to after.
Okay, Athanasius, thank you you got some uh some stuff to show us with a flashlight in the graveyard.
Uh yeah, I do.
But actually these two like robbed most of my ideas. But there's a couple of that works.
Oh man, that's a dirty business, you know.
So I had a couple of those picks. But one we didn't talk about was a cryptocurrency, so a vank Ethereum Futures e f U T was the ticker. But I think this closed for a good reason. It's because Etheroeum spotty tfs became live. So there's a better product. There's a better exposure to theory, and so all the future based ones had closed out. I think there was a bitcoin strategy one they also had that closed as well, But this one is just a byproduct that a better product.
Had come along and replaced it.
So basically, you're telling Eric that the crypto theme really didn't work in twenty twenty four.
You know, if you look at it that way, it actually we could use that.
It's too weak of a troll.
It's two weeks.
There's too much, so much better.
I used the troll, but.
I just gave up.
I was like, it's just it's too tired.
You know, they have billions of influence.
Listen when when when when there's ETF closures within the industry, that's a sign that it's at the top, right, Isn't.
That how this works?
In that case, that thing gets got rolled over by all the new ones which were giving you.
Direct look in an ETF.
In the ETF world, if you can give it to somebody direct, physically backed, they're going to choose that they want the real thing. Nobody wants in direct ways of getting exposure. Generally, you're being too calm about this. I'm trying to get you to.
It's two weak of a troll. He's done better.
Uh no, but it's to your point that once investures want the real things, once a better product comes along, they will naturally just go over to that.
All right, Nathan, what else you got? All right?
I was gonna mix this one up. Can I pick one that hasn't died but has its tombstone picked out already?
Because it's it's.
Gonna close already talked about K pop?
No, this is another one.
This is it already has a closure day and now so it's FM, which is the I Shares Frontier Markets ETF. They announce it they're gonna close, they said maybe early next year. And this one's pretty interesting because it had about four hundred million in assets, so it's pretty odd to see an ETF that large close. So we kind of looked at why are they closing? And it's frontier markets, so it's very kind of small liquid markets. It was actually problematic for them to run it, so they decided that it wasn't worth running it if they couldn't do it. So they're starting to unwind it, and anyone does have it, just keep in mind like it's pretty much just holding cash now, so which is slowly sort of unwinding itself, but that's something that is going to close. They don't know officially, but they said sometime in the first quarter.
So we lost Nigeria and we're about to lose frontier markets. Was Nigeria part of the frontier markets?
I don't remember, but I think it is in that in that category.
But we still have Vietnamese ETF.
So the rtical closed too. There's still the.
Vanak Vietnam ETF that is a frontier market. I think.
Honestly, FM went on a tear like seven or eight years ago. I like it because it's all these countries that are it's almost like investing in like I don't know, double A baseball players or something, because they got to go to emerging markets and when they get picked to come up, their country goes up big time. And this is where we catch it. You don't get it after you get it when it's in FM. I think our shares was just reviewing and it was just too painful because I called them and then I it's funny someone was interested in like buying it from them and like and basically like restarting it. But they they were like, Nah, we're just you know, we don't want to We're closing it because we think it's bad for the public, not because of finding financial reasons, so they don't want to like get have anything to do with it. But I do think this is a not bad Lazarus List potential.
But it's got to close first, so keep an eye.
I had another Eye Shares one that kind of caught my eye that I wanted to ask you about, Eric, which was I a u F Which was the I Shares Goldie TF, Like, it's really shocking that, you know, gold is totally on a tear this year and then one of the biggest names in ETS decides to close it down.
And I wanted to ask what you made of that?
Oh, I see this, correct me if I'm wrong, Todd or Ethan, But this is a Gold strategy. I believe they were trying to use the future's curve and like pick out the right futures at the.
Right time or something.
So pretty technical.
Yeah, nobody Again, if you have a commodity where you can physically store it, no problem.
Nobody's gonna pick the futures. So that's my take. You got it? Am I wrong there?
Well?
I think that's the case. But they still have very popular IAU that that's seen a lot of inflows. And I think they have a lower cost version that the ticker's failing me at the moment.
I U M.
Maybe something like that.
It's their GLDM version that has seen a lot of success.
This aum what you Matt? Yeah, look at that.
When you stroll by the graveyard, you pick up a couple of ideas along the way. So I Shares is still committed to the gold space, just not into the future side.
All right, IAU M one point four billion? Who they grew up so fast. They grow up fast or they liquidate, which.
Is why we're here. Ethan.
Uh, you get a Hershey's for your efforts today. All right, Eric, bring us on. What else?
What else jumped out at you?
Okay?
Micro sectors US, big oil three X. At the time this came out, it was I think the most volatile e TN. It was ne TN ever introduced. It had two billion dollars. So I asked Mike Eshman over at micro Strategies, like, Hey, what's going on here?
You got a huge hit on your hands. Why would you close it?
He said, Look the size and concentrated nature of the basket made it difficult to hedge, so they have Oi l U, which is a bit more diversified, so they they as Ethan kind of calls it flew too close to the sun. I think there is a point where it's just too it's too much, too far away from home, and this one was and that's tough to give up. But they were probably hearing it from the ecosystem. Hey man, we cannot make a market in this, and we're not. And you can't leave your ETF out there without market makers interested in working with it, So that one stuck out to me.
It's the first ETN we've talked about, I mean, which shows you how much the industry has is We talked about exchange traded products, but it's mostly exchange traded funds, and most of these that we're talking about are so tiny, you know, certainly less than one hundred million up for the FM one which hasn't yet closed, So calling it a little bit.
Early death watch death watch, Yes, yeah, okay, another one.
The alpha dog atf HM. Great ticker rough, are you ff?
There are some incredible tickers in this list.
So I don't totally know who was behind this. I remember when it launched and I was like kind of a cool memorable you know, it just hits quickly and you get it. This is someone going out and being a dog for Alpha.
What did Alpha dog hold?
So this was here's what it says.
It invested primarily in large and mid cap securities, so it was just an active fund coming to the market. Now Indie sounds like indie. I don't think it was connected any bigger firm.
But here's the problem.
It was ninety basis points and it launched in October twenty twenty one rate before the Sahi t hit the fan, which was twenty twenty two when the FED rays rates. And so this thing launched right into a buzzsaw. And if your game is just alpha, it's hard to launch to a bus all like a theme metf can launch, go down and then come back up and still have the shiny object moment.
But so bad timing.
Highphee. Indy wasn't meant to last. But that said, it had. I remember filing. I remember it launching because it actually broke through the clutter with that name sough rough rough rough.
It's rough out there.
Yeah, Well it got put down Okay, what else you got? This is pet cemetery stuff.
This is man but we still have By the way, we still have S dog and I dog.
We do a lot of dogs.
Left pause.
Eric found found the corner of the cemetery that nobody really wanted to touch, and he took us there.
Okay, okay, you know, I got to pick this one. You know's what is it? He knows it's got to be an ESG fund. Well I have one of those, but okay, yeah, so I'll go there the Wisdom Tree ESG fund R E s P. And look, Wisdom Tree isn't really into this. I mean, let's just face it. There's a couple of firms that are really into ESG, and I think they'll carry on. You know, you got to really be into it. They that's not their thing. Like a currency had GTF, Wisdom Tree is really into. They're gonna keep those open. It's the Johnny cum Lately's little closed. In fact, there was a currency heagg from I shares I shares Hedge Hedge Germany, which closed because that's not really their thing. So if it's not your thing and you launch late, you don't see you're just gonna close it. And speaking of these ESG closures, you know, I was predicted there would be a bunch of closures, so I bet Todd and I was right, but I was one year early.
So he ended up winning that one. Technically, so I ate a steak.
Technically you did that, you paid for you did technically, Yeah, no, you did.
I was.
I got a little excited with this prediction, but it ended up being right. Now.
You know what they're doing. Now they're taking ESG and just kicking out of the name. So they're gonna keep the fund around, just move ESG. ESG is almost borderline radioactive. It's become like not just like profitable. I think if you're a wholesale and you show up to like an advisor in like Nebraska or Texas or anywhere, I don't think the advisor now to have the client react to ESG and the fund.
It's got too much baggage. So this is a real problem they have.
The hardcore like hippie types are gonna seek this out and buy it, so there will be a small niche. But outside of that, all these Johnny com Lately and tourists ESG issuers, they're gonna close these funds, so not shocked. There no the one I wanted to pick, the one on the list that really hurts. Inverse Jim Kramer s Jim, Now, listen, remember I predicted, or I even recommended to the industry they should launch this. Matt Tuttle did it. God bless him. He launches you know, all kinds of stuff and he even track Kramer's picks. The problem with this ETF wasn't the idea, it was the execution. This ETF is designed to go long his short picks and short his long picks.
Makes sense.
The problem is then you have a long short portfolio, so every day they mostly offset, so the movement in the fund was very low vall. It never it could never get a shiny object moment. What he should have done is had two ETFs, long his shorts that done, and short his lungs. Because I'm telling you, this guy is spectacularly wrong on a regular basis. All he need is a couple of those grand slams and one of these would have had that shiny object moment. This was designed wrong, and I think if total we're here, he would agree. But maybe they'll try it again.
Another Lazarus list candidate.
No, no, no, no way. I mean it was a gimmick that failed.
I just told you it was design wrong though, and but it got no money because people like it can ever go.
People like to shout at the TV when something goes wrong. It don't break out their money in to gimmick. It was a gimmick. And if I can go back for a second, they're pulling ESG off of the name because the regulators are requiring that they have ESG in the name that it fits certain subjective criteria in terms of what the SEC says. So we're seeing names come off for ESG because the fund can't operate with ESG in the name. It isn't because what do you call it? Hippies from from from where? That isn't the reason behind.
Wait to critique that one.
Okay, are the regulators also why the outflows are coming into.
Well, the fs do that too. The funds closed, So that's what we're talking about.
So anyway closed.
The names didn't change for that reason.
I think Todd's bitter about you know, nobody really like liking his candy selection.
Oh no, I'm happy with it.
You're happy with.
That's the goal is like when you put the candy bull out and nobody likes the candy and you get to keep it.
All all right.
Just a couple of quick a couple other ones quickly the arrow reverse cap five hundred yps, which is spy backwards.
This took the S and P and just reversed weighted it.
It was like, so it's like yours market cap weight we get mag seven at the top, equal weighted. Everybody's two percent or this, which is everything is reverse reversed, So the bottom of the S and P has the biggest waiting.
So honestly it's all of midcaps. Sometimes midcaps have a run. This thing was just very novel.
And I remember Phil back when he used to run it had used the reverse card, the UNO card.
I thought that was kind of cool marketing.
And the ticker was good, but innovative idea wasn't meant to be. It gave it a good like what five or six years?
Is there anything that could perform worse than the opposite of the nag?
Yeah, like I said, it's this time d And then here I've got innovator triple stacker January.
You know the word innovator, I see it multiple times on this list at least three. What's up with the one that you picked?
Well, innovator in this case is the name of the company versus say the direction Moonshot Innovators, which is more of a Kathy Wood type ETF that didn't work out, But this one is well call him at this one. I always loved the triple stacker, which makes me think of like a Denny's breakfast item. You know, hey, I'll take the triple stacker. Sonny set up ye wheat toast, thank you, But it didn't work out here.
It didn't work out.
It wasn't the I don't know bad, it just wasn't the right thing. The innovator, to their credit, they've innovated.
They've innovated quite a.
Bit, and they really introduced the buffer. They created that category. First Trust has actually taken in more flows this year than them, but they're doing fine. This one didn't work out. And then finally the Procure Disaster Recovery ETF FEMA. This was from Andrew Chain and who who really was behind the famous hack Hack went to a new firm, put his all into this.
He sillys ufo.
He stills ufo.
But this one, especially after the hurricanes. Thought it might have had a nice little run, but it couldn't really get going. So I bet someone Lazarus lists this one disaster recovery. We'll see, but and then another one all got out throw in there. I share his Pakistan, I know in over single countries, I thought that one would find a market just because it was so volatile and could really provide a lot of juice. But like I said, international across the board had a tough time because the US just dominated so much.
Right, Well, this was another great year through the graveyard and wanted to think Todd, Vil, Donna, and Athanasias for joining us on this episode of Trillions.
Thanks for having us, agains for having us.
Thanks for the toyslers, 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 Baultnis.
This episode of Trillions was produced by Magnus and Rickson. Bye