Dave Nadig, President & Director of Research at ETF.com alongside Sumit Roy, Senior ETF Analyst at ETF.com, talks with Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence and Todd Sohn, Senior ETF & Technical Strategist, Strategas Securities in this episode of ETF Zoo. The crew talks current ETF flows, including blockbuster flows into the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), the impacts of the impending SpaceX IPO, and also offer their perspectives on ARK Invest and Cathie Wood’s active management style and more.
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ETF flows are at record highs. Equity inflows average over $5 billion per day, dominated almost entirely by tech and AI-related funds. DRAM, a memory chip ETF, reached $10 billion in assets in roughly 43 days, breaking nearly every record for a non-crypto ETF.
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The ARK Invest debate centers on Cathie Wood’s stock-picking eye versus her rebalancing discipline. Eric Balchunas argues that consistently trimming the biggest winners like Tesla and Bitcoin too early costs enormous long-term returns. The consensus was that while Wood is transparent and skilled at identifying trends, the equal-weighting tendency has worked against the strategy in a market dominated by a handful of mega-winners.
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SpaceX’s upcoming IPO is generating buzz. ETFs are piling in, with leveraged and options-income ETF filings already in the pipeline before the stock even trades. The crew were skeptical about playing the 15-day window before index inclusion, underscoring that the window will be populated by speculative traders rather than informed price discovery.
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Bond markets flashed some warning signs. The 30-year yield hit its highest level since 2007, though the crew largely agrees the AI trade is so dominant that most investors are shrugging it off. Balchunas quipped that the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) has “lured more sailors to shipwreck” than any other ETF, as long-duration bets have repeatedly punished optimistic buyers.
Find out more about this episode’s guests:
Eric Balchunas and Bloomberg Intelligence: Bloomberg Intelligence, Eric on Twitter
Todd Sohn and Strategas: strategasasset.com, Todd on LinkedIn
