Are ETFs Really Crushing Mutual Funds?
Peter Thiel has this quote to open his book Zero to One: Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey [...]
Smart Beta is Officially Dead, but Not Forgotten
What is Smart Beta? Nobody really knows these days. Heck, even the godfather of smart beta, Rob Arnott, is no longer certain. Here's his original definition (from a great piece attempting to bring sanity to [...]
Understanding the State of the ETF Industry through Mergers, Acquisitions, and Fragility
Last year I wrote the following: In 2014 and 2015 there was a wave of ETF company acquisitions by large asset management firms. The reason was simple: if an asset management company was not in the [...]
An Inside Look at How ETF Firms are Competing. Hint: Price Isn’t Everything
Morgan Housel had a post on the idea of conflicting skill sets. Morgan makes the following comment: F. Scott Fitzgerald said intelligence is "the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your head at the [...]
The History of ETFs: Perspectives from ETF Legends, Reggie Browne and Arlene Rockefeller
ETFs have grown fast, yet there are still some opponents of the structure. However, the general story by ETF opponents has changed over the past 5 to 7 years. Opponents of ETF growth have gone [...]
ETF Product Development: Past, Present, and Future
On October 1st, 1908 Henry Ford introduced the Model T to the world. The power of the Model T was that it democratized the automobile so the average working-class person could afford a car for [...]
Assessing the Potential Market Impact of Passive, Short-volatility, and Low-volatility Strategies
The market has recently experienced record low levels of realized volatility and the VIX™ (volatility index) has fallen to historic lows. Moreover, the incredibly popular FAAMG stocks[ref]FAAMG is an abbreviation referring to the stocks of [...]
How ETF Trading Works: A Deep Dive Into ETF Market Making
Many in the financial service industry are now using ETFs to build portfolios. Some love the tax-efficiency of ETFs relative to mutual funds, while others use ETFs as trading vehicles. Either way, ETF assets continue to [...]
The Capacity of Smart Beta Funds — Larger than Previously Thought?
ETFs and factor investing are on the tip of everyone's tongue these days. Factor investing is being couched as a "new" thing, despite the fact that institutional investors have been deploying these strategies for years. (See this working paper discussing the effective use of smart beta strategies by institutional investors.)However, because factor investing is now directly accessible via ETFs, those who are unfamiliar with factor investing are asking questions about how these "new" funds will affect the market.Two burning questions many investors have:What is the overall capacity of smart beta funds? What is the capacity of momentum-based funds, specifically?
Great Academic Finance Research Papers at WFA 2017
There are several big academic finance conferences that attract the best research and the best researchers in one bullpen -- the AFA and the WFA meetings. We chatted about the AFA event last January (be [...]
How are ETFs Affecting the Stock Market: Is There a Dark Side to ETFs?
The Dark Side of ETFs? Sounds interesting, and in my humble opinion, an image of Darth Vader on page 1 would be a great addition to the paper. The paper, "Is there a dark side to exchange [...]
How Asset Managers Are Adapting to Exchange-Traded-Funds
The ETF industry has been around for over 20 years at this point, but over the past 5 years the ETF industry has captivated the investment world. I've had a front seat on the action, launching [...]
Active Versus Passive for the US and the Canadian Markets
We all hear about the massive move away from active to passive in the US market. We also hear arguments that passive may eat the world and that active management is a zero sum game [...]
Factor ETF Due Diligence: A New Challenge for Some Investors
Factor investing seems to be everywhere, but the topic is still misunderstood by large swaths of the investing public. Tommi Johnsen and I would like to help bring clarity to the topic and help this [...]
A really cool paper (and graphic) on ETFs
Zahi Ben-David has an excellent new summary paper on the state of academic research on exchange traded funds with colleagues Rabih Moussawi and Francesco Fanzoni.[ref]We focused on Zahi for this interview, but Rabih and Francesco have some wonderful [...]