ETF Edge - Trending Now: Active ETFs & Options Overlay 12/4/23

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

CNBC’s Bob Pisani sat down with Brendan McCarthy, Head of ETF Distribution and ETF Capital Markets – along with Tim Seymour, Founder and CIO of Seymour Asset Management, and Todd Sohn, ETF and Technical Strategist at Strategas Securities. Actively managed ETFs have captured a quarter of all ETF flows in 2023. Our panel of experts discussed the power of active management this year, what’s driving the big gains and whether this marks the start of a new trend as investors brace for the new year. We’ll also dig into the pitfalls and the promise behind the increasingly popular options overlay strategy – options overlay – which uses options to generate income via ETFs. In the “Markets 102” portion, Bob continued the conversation with Todd Sohn from Strategas Securities.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The ETF Edge podcast is sponsored by InvescoQQQQ, supporting the innovators changing the world. Investco Distributors, Inc. Welcome to ETF Edge, the podcast. If you're looking to learn the latest insights on all things, exchange, traded funds, you are in the right place. Every week, we're bringing you interviews, market analysis, and breaking down what it all means for investors. I'm your host, Bob Pazani, believe it or not, actively managed ETFs have captured a quarter of all ETF inflows in 2023. Today on the show, we'll discuss the power of active management this year, what's driving the big gains, and whether this marks the start of a new trend as investors brace for the new year.

We'll also dig into a popular active strategy, options overlay, and discuss the pitfalls and the promise behind using options to generate income using ETFs. Here's my conversation with Brendan McCarthy, the head of ETF distribution and ETF Capital Markets at Goldman Sachs, along with Tim Seymour, founder and CIO of Seymour Asset Management and Todd Sone. the ETF and technical strategists as strategic securities. Brendan, Goldman just launched these two actively managed ETFs a few weeks ago. One centered on the S&P 500, the others on the NASDAQ 100, both used as override strategy to generate income by selling call options. So that sounds fancy.

Explain it for the viewers. Assume that they don't quite understand what you're doing. Sure, sure. And thanks, Bob. And you mentioned a moment ago a lot of words, but in those words were core in income, and that's pretty important. But these are buy-right strategies, right? And as the name suggests, there's two key components, the buy and the right.

The buy is simply buying a diversified portfolio of stocks. In this case, we're buying the index. We're buying S&P, and we're buying NASDAQ for each respective fund. The right, where we're selling calls, we're writing calls on those index ETFs in order to generate income, right? Right. So the active part of this is where you're buying the options, right? Now, how do you determine what options you're actually going to buy? That's your choice, right?

That's the active part. Exactly. How does that happen? Yeah, so this is really the best combination of index in active. The index is the underlying component. The active is a dynamic overriding strategy, right? The options we're using, we're using options in ETFs. We're writing options on cues and spies, right?

And that's very purposeful so that we can manage the basis of it all. I want to get to the point. Core of this, you're not writing options on all 500. how many are actually writing options on? And how do you determine what that number is? We're writing options on SPY and triple Q's. That's it. And we're doing that purposely.

Not individual ones, though. Not individual. Important distinction. Exactly. Exactly. And that allows us to manage the basis. Okay. I want to just move on here.

You're looking at the S&P. By the way, you look at the core holdings here. Look at this. I mean, there you go. This is the S&P 500 here. So, again, the key strategy is the options overlay that you're doing here. And here's the NASDAQ 100. If this doesn't look like the NASDAQ 100, you're not paying attention here.

That's pretty close to what you're actually doing. Tim, you provide, I want to move to you. You provide research right now for the Amplify International Enhanced Dividendem ETF. This is actively managed. It's really the same contents. You use a call writing strategy, but this time you're doing it with international stocks. So explain a little bit about how this works. Yeah, and as a guy that's been investing in international on EM, most of my career on

the hedge fund side. What I love about this strategy is, first of all, we're not tethered to Eurostocks 50 or MSCI Global. We can pick best-of-breed companies with balance sheets that we think are pristine. Again, companies, similar to other, you know, div strategies where we want companies that are growing their payout levels. And we want to be able to then have this tactical call writing approach, which we think also minimizes volatility. And it's not just writing calls on every stock in the portfolio. But ultimately, it is about delivering return. I mean, the strategy's total return is a little under 16% year to date. Many people look at international as similar to U.S. equal-weighted,

and it's outperform the RSP or pick whatever equal-weighted ETF over from inception by almost 7%. And that was back in September of 22. So international is not where everybody needs to be with all their assets, but it's a time between Fed policy and dollar peaking that I think international active works. And I'm looking at your core holdings here, And this mimics the international index that you use with. Right.

I see Prolius Rosalero, Petrobras. Yeah, Petrobras. Mitsubishi, Bankel Bilbao, Heineken, these are all big, well-known companies here. Use the same strategy here. You're buying call options on an index, right? Bank, no, buying call options on the individual stocks. To be clear, every stock in the portfolio, for people that are worried about being invested in far-flung places, these are all an ADR form. And if we don't have the liquidity in the underlying, especially even in the options markets,

we don't have to be there. But again, all these are ADRs. They're big balance sheets. They're big global companies that we think ultimately fit the criteria, which is that they're growing their payout levels and they are a more conservative approach to getting your international. So there's a distinction, though, here between the strategies. You're using the S&P options and NASDAQ 100 options. You're using individual.

How do you decide which stocks you're buying options on? If you think about a lot of the stocks, think about the move we've had in Japan. Think about some of the dynamics with the Japanese banks once the BOJ said that they were going to end YCCC. A Mitsubishi, which is, I'd argue, the JP Morgan of Japan, had a really big run. And sometimes that upside, that upside vol is really interesting to be writing calls on. So we're tactical. It's not universally taking the entire portfolio and writing calls against it. In fact, that's the whole point.

The same thing you have in common is you're selling calls to generate income. And there might be a tendency here, Brandon, to go for whatever you can do to generate the most income to have a distribution that's high. But my understanding, talking to you, that's not necessarily the goal here. Your goal is not necessary to generate the highest level of income. What is... Correct, right? So we're trying to do three things here. You know, first and foremost is give you that core exposure, right?

That's very purposeful because that's, you know, at the heart of many client portfolios. So core S&P and NASDAQ, right? But secondly, we're trying to target a stable yield, right? Income investors, they want to know what they're going to get, right? So part of our strategy is to really be very consistent with the income we're going to generate. The third part, though, and this is really important, a lot of buy-right strategies cover the whole portfolio. The active part of ours is we're managing the coverage ratio, right? We're doing that so that we can leave some of the portfolio uncovered so that income investors can also benefit from capital appreciation.

Yeah, and the key thing here is in terms of what kind of options you're buying. You're buying near-in-the-money options, or you're not going out a year now. No. We're focused on at the money. At the money. Okay. You two? Where are you?

We're somewhere between three to six months, but, you know, in some level, again, some of the near-term stuff actually pays you more in terms of the implied ball. And I want to note free ad for you, Amplify, who you work with, also has Devo, D-I-V-O, which is the enactly managed ETO, the private income by selecting stocks from the United States. And this is, by the way, a dividend strategy. This is the sister strategy, international. version, the exact same approach to a $3 billion plus ETF. Right.

But you use a dividend strategy here, correct? Well, the approach here, again, is total return. The distribution yield is around 6% and it continues to be a big part of what this fund is doing. But again, in terms of the performance, I'll let the audience and the investors think about how they frame international, vis-a-vis both U.S. and equal-weighted, market-weighted. But the point is that if you think about the exposure you're getting with a lot of big, established international companies. You're talking about industrials, you're talking about banks, you're talking about resource companies. We have a view that we're in an energy super cycle. If you look at the big integrated oil companies in Europe, a total or royal Dutch, their

break-even for the div is even 15, 20 percent cheaper than Chevron and Exxon. So part of this is finding companies that we think are truly best-of-breed companies, growing payout levels. Part of it is finding those companies that we actually think are well positioned and are cheap, relative to their peers. You've been an international investor. I've known you for a long time, for a long, long time. And yet it's still underperforming this year on an index basis, even in Asia, Europe still. How do you keep people interested? Would you have consistent underperforming? No, fair enough. And look, I don't expect that people are running out to put 30% of the portfolio on the equity portfolio in international. But I think, and in fact,

if you look at internationally in EM, ETF allocations, we are probably on a relative lower ebb than than we've been at other times. I think the two things you look at with international for the next 12 to 18 months are, look, I think the dollar is sniffing out Fed policy. I think going into 23, everybody thought the dollar is going to be very weak. In fact, it's caught a lot of people off guard. I think it started to give ground. I think the Fed, wherever we are with higher for longer, Fed policy, I think the dollar is sniffing out, and it's lost 4% since the beginning of October. That's a great backdrop for international investing. It's not your only reason, but I think, again, pick your allocation, and this is a great approach because it's conservative, it's best of breed companies.

You've been very patient sitting over there. This is the Grand Puba, my friend, Todd, who likes to opine on the ETF businesses. What do you think about this? I mean, the ETFs are historically associated with passive investing. You all know that, like going to the S&P, but we're talking about active here. Why is active management having a moment? And there's a very specific kind of active management, actually. Yeah, it comes down to, I think, a few different items. Number one, money's going to ETFs. It's leaving mutual funds. So if you're an active provider, you have to have the vehicle now. And I think you're seeing that from certain issuers, right, who are out there.

Secondly, you have five stocks that are 25% of the S&P 500. That is great for passive, but if you're a little concerned about those stocks maybe coming in, you're going to want to have a hand on the wheel. And then third, it's not traditional active anymore. It's not the old school back in the day call on the hotline. Here's a good stock. It's income, right? People, I think income might be the word of the year for 2023, given the amount of flows that have gone to income products, given the amount of flows that have gone to money market funds, right?

I think you have a large cohort of investors who are approaching retirement, but they just want to keep getting that paycheck to pay off their monthly bills, whatever it would be. So it's a big shift. Well, see, that's a crucial distinction. Why I think this particular kind of active might have a little more legs here. This is not your grandfather's investing. This is a very specific. You're not picking stocks so much here. You've got an investing strategy.

That's a little different. So do you believe there is enough investors that are willing to buy these products? Has the investing community become that conservative? They're getting old and they want the income. I mean, you seem to be saying yes. I would argue. Sophisticated, smarter, and then just the amount of money that is ingrained from those who have grown up over the last 50 years. It's a lot of wealth they've been sitting on.

And they may not want to leave their entire equity exposure. So they may say, let me dial it back and still get large cap or small cap exposure. with that income. And then for international, I think it makes a ton of sense. International has been terrible. And so at this point, you have to unbundle your international. Don't buy the Eiff, don't buy EF, don't buy EM, buy specific countries and then specific stocks. And along with the covered calls, I think that helps there too.

So I think that's the future of active. No, you can't invest in a bad neighborhood, in fact. That's kind of the point. I mean, like, look at people have been trying to make money in China, and it doesn't necessarily work. And this argument about, like, the magnificent seven or eight stocks being 30% of the S&B, I'm not saying it's tomorrow. That to me is peaked, and I think that's going to really benefit international. There is, so here's the cynic in me. I follow ETF.

E.F is a popularity contest. It becomes that. And we saw this with pot stocks. We saw this with all sorts of things in the last 10 years that have come and gone. They closed the meme stock ETF a little while ago. I remember how hot that was. So there's a plethora of these covered-called ETFs that are out there. Goldman, which has got a lot of money behind it, is now in the game,

which is why I'm having you here to talk about it. But we've seen filings from pro shares around this recently. I shares, who else, Roundhill, Defiance have come in. There's a whole pile of people coming in. Is there enough scared baby boomers out? It's very reminiscent of me of a few years ago when you had the successive arc and then all the issuers started coming out with innovation and disruption. It doesn't mean it can't work, and everyone here can't be successful,

but the pie is going to get smaller and smaller until the next craze. comes along, whatever that might be. Yeah. Bob, I think, you know, you look at, this is a solution, right? And a solution for who? You know, we talk about boomers. There's $11 trillion in IRAs. There's about $850 billion expected to roll over.

You know, that's a lot of money coming into, from boomers, from people that argue that conservative end of the investing spectrum. This type of solution helps them with RMDs, helps them manage, you know, their expenses. So, you know, I think more and more with active management, it will be the traditional the stock picking stuff that we've talked about. But it's also these type of products, they're providing solutions, right? And you can use derivative type of products

that can generate income and provide a solution. This makes absolute sense to me. You're sitting there. If you're a Goldman Sachs, you've got an enormous potential investor base there. And the old, let's pick stocks doesn't necessarily work so well.

You've got a different kind of active solution that's out there that generates income. And I'm a nervous, you know, I'm almost 70 years old as myself. I'm the heart of the baby boomer generation. This makes a lot of sense to me. I must say, here's my one pushback on this. You have to kind of believe that you're going to get subpar returns for a long time.

I personally am in the game, I'm planning to live till 90, so I'm almost 70. I got 20 years. If I had a down year like last year, it's not going to matter in 20 years from now. So I tend to just stay long on this. I'm a Jack Bogle guy. I tend to stay long on this. How do you convince those people that are a little nervous to buy a sort of annuity? I'm not saying these are annuities.

They're quasi-protection. Income. That's the exact question. I mean, there's nothing wrong with seeking out income in an active alpha-generating strategy. And I think that's kind of the point. And I would make the argument that the advisory community and self-directed investors are so much more sophisticated and actually need to deliver something more sophisticated. And that's the good news. This isn't, you know, passive ETFs have had a great place.

But again, active ETFs have already exceeded, you know, last year by what, 20 billion or so in terms of their, their, their, their, allocations, that's going to be higher next year, too. And I think that approach to generating alpha. Well, maybe. Remember, these strategies, they work in a very specific environment. We talked about this earlier on the show, folks. Call writing strategies are one of the most popular, actively manages strategies. They work great in an environment where the market is sideways or down, but not so much in an up market like we're experiencing now. Can we keep, with all of these new ETFs coming to market, are they going to find an audience if the market keeps rising? It's a harder play.

That's a hard. I think that is the point, like 100%. There's a lot of flavors of buy-right strategies out there, right? But any one of them, what we really want to do, we want to deliver income on a portfolio that's appreciating. This is where the active overriding strategy comes into play, right? Because you don't want to be fully covered, right? Because then you're not going to participate in the upside.

So the active management is really on that coverage, that coverage ratio. And investors, active investors, really want to be managing that so that investors like yourself, the folks that are 70 and waiting for income, right? You also want your portfolio to grow. By the way, if we're learning on cable, national cable financial news that Bob is almost 70, you can knock me over the feather. Okay, fantastic. I figured you were talking about 50 more years. There I go.

You know, I was at the Bob Dylan show the other day, and all the wheelchairs rushed the stage and all the canes we came up, waved our canes in the air. Not apparent. Delete that from the TV. show, please. So I want to go back to the dividend ETS because here's another strategy. Just had a tough time this year in general. Dividend stocks and ETFs, they've underperformed the market all this year. The biggest dividend ETF, I shares, D-Y. D-V-Y. Yeah, there's a whole host. It's DVY, right? The dividend one. Yeah. Yeah, I shares. Yeah. It's down like 5% so far this

year. With the market up 18%. We had all in bets on utilities kind of fizzled. Now they're coming back. Long constituency in this type of environment when it's big tech. And I get divinity VETFs. It's more income, but there's such a amount of flavor out there for divinity ETFs. You need to understand what they're looking at. Is it growth over the last five years, 20 years, 50 years? There we are.

There's the S&P versus the DVAWR. If you're buying a dividend ETF and it's heavy on utilities and staples when rates are 5%, that doesn't make any sense. Or going from four to five. Yeah. I mean, and I would argue, and I think Brendan was echoing this point, which is that you're not going for the dividend. You're going for a portfolio of companies that actually are targeting.

And those companies as a subset are generating higher. They point out they outperformed in 2020, by the way. And if you were chasing dividends owning AT&T and Verizon, I mean, we don't need to pick on those guys. But that's, you know, to me, and we do this on fast money every night, if you talk about investing chasing dividends just on individual stocks, you lose that in one day. I mean, it's not the, so I think the approach. in the ETF land to find an active strategy that is looking to find companies that have a dividend profile and a free cash flow profile, a balance sheet, frankly, that's not worried about paying

the next dividend is really what this is about. So hopefully the active strategy, the alpha is added by picking those companies, but that the structure is that you're not necessarily having to pick stocks all day long. There's actually a framework. So what would you say, Todd? I think this is candidate option overwrite strategy. whatever you want, buy-right strategies. So it's probably a candidate for the big ETF trend of the year. Is there another trend? You're the Grand Puba here that really stuck out to you this year?

I think it's that. I think it's short-duration cash-like vehicles. And I also think I would pay attention to small-caps. Maybe that's a 2024 story in that real active management. There's no money going into small caps. Small caps are flawed, right? Too many regional banks, too much boom-in-bust biotech. That's where you should focus on traditional.

I'm not talking about what you want to have happen, though. I'm talking about where the money actually is going. year. This year's been all about short duration. All right, cash like vehicles. I mean, money market funds aren't an ETF, but... All right. Would you agree? You're a long-time ETF guy. You know, just under the hood though in the month of November, small caps made an appearance. You know, if you look closely there, there's activity there. And you know, I would, you know, we, the last five weeks, Bob, we've launched three

new active products, two are the premium income. One, believe it or not, is also our small cap core. And this is our first active small cap. ETF, and that's very much on the back of investor demand asking us for, and this goes to something that Todd said earlier, everybody wants it in an ETF, right? And so I do think that is a trend for next year as well. Yeah, well, look, given the underperformance of small caps this year, some outperformance next year where mean reversion should happen, and yet it hasn't for a while. It's been, I keep wait. I own a small cap value fund for years and years and years because that's the historic strategies go back and talk to the

what factors work, small cap and value tend to outperform big cap and growth over long periods of time. Well, I've been sitting here for 15 years waiting, and I own this fabulous small cap value. It gets very high. It gets five stars a morning star, and it's still underperforming. And I keep waiting. What's been gone on for 15 years, though. I mean, I think about the world we've lived in, and I go back to internationally the metaphor is you can't invest in a bad neighborhood. So you don't have to invest in every country.

But the bad neighborhood for small caps has been free money. And if you think about the argument of negative yields and the dynamics also of flooding the market, your high duration stocks, growth stocks will outperform in that environment. But high interest rates don't help small caps, do they? No, no, hopefully they're adjusting. That's why I think you need the active handle on there. See, this is what happens. You get three smart people in a room together and, you know, me off to the side yelling at them.

Now it's time to round out the conversation with some analysis. and perspective to help you better understand ETFs. This is the Market's 102 portion of the podcast. We'll be continuing the conversation with Todd Sone from Stategis Securities. Todd, good chatting with you. It's been flows this year have continued into bonds and stocks, but at a lower level than the last few years. November has seen a few changes.

Can you describe what's going on this year as we finish out the year? Then I want to talk to about 2024. Yeah, I'd say for much of the year, it's been very, very, restrained at the equity level, right? An uncommon bottom of sorts since last October. It didn't have the same surge and quite risk appetite that you see coming off of typical bottoms. Now, last month, great month for equities, you finally saw about 65 billion into equity ETFs. That's the highest in over a year. So some risk appetite coming back in. And I'd say away from equity is also led by high yield ETF. So there's more risk seeking behavior from investors.

And importantly, it's not quite where I would call aggressive levels yet. So sentiment, yeah, it's peaking up. That's because stocks are doing well. But we're nowhere near levels where I would say this is a red flag going forward. That's a very important thing to keep in mind to next year. And we just did a show where we talked about active management having a moment. There's a plethora of active management funds, but there's a very specific type of active management funds, funds that use option overlay strategies. And this is a little different than having active management the way you and I used to think of it, where you get some stock pickers picking a basket of stocks and saying this is what we think is going to outperform. Here,

Most of the time, they're buying indexes and then buying option strategies. They're buying call options and generating income. And if you're in a flat to down market, that's good news. But if you're in an upmarket, it's not. So I'm trying to figure out why this sudden spate of interest in this particular kind of active strategy. What is it symptomatic of? Yeah, traditional active has struggled. Keeping up with the Apple and Microsoft's, the magnificent sevens of the world has proven extremely difficult.

And especially if you're at a high fee, it just doesn't justify it much for investors. So option overlay strategies are the new act of the alternative where you're getting the income that everyone loves. And I think it also has to do with the aging demographics of America. There is trillions of dollars nearing retirement. And those types of investors, I think, like the idea of being involved in the equity market, getting income, and at least having that cushion during down drafts. Now, it's up to the issuers to determine what type of stocks they have in that wrapper, right? They're not going to go ahead and start beating tech stocks.

But if they have high quality different type players, then that makes sense. Is this a sign that the baby boomers who have to sell stocks now because they're going into retirement are getting a little concerned? And it's better than selling stocks, right, and going, you know, just buying short-term, you know, money market funds. But it's a cautious strategy. You're giving up a significant upside. You're selling call options. If the market goes up, of course, you know, you're not participating. That's the tradeoff.

You're not going to be involved in a runaway bull market, right? Like maybe even like we had in November, that was a pretty strong month. You're not going to get the full return of that. But I think some investors are happy with it saying, okay, at least I'm involved rather than being in bonds and perhaps missing the entire move. And that's the real tradeoff here. I think it's a significant movement. I think it shows, particularly after what happened to 2022, we had a down year in stocks, down your bonds. The S&P was down 20%.

People are like me approaching 70. their baby boomers out there saying, you know, I don't want to leave the stock market, but I need to buy some kind of protection. It's not an annuity, but it's some kind of protection on the market. So I think it speaks to the big down year we had and to the aging of the investor base. Yeah, you don't want to go through another. 2022 was rough, but you don't want a 2008 or 2000. God forbid that happens then.

That's really problematic. So the optional overlays can at least cushion against that, or a buffer to the ETF in the same, way. And yet, even in 20, can I just speak out about that? That was a once in a generation decline, but even then you got back to even in a few years. Yeah. So the trick is staying in the market and eventually you're sitting in a garden variety, 20% correction. Look what happened. We're near, we're back where we were a year ago after a 20% decline. These last two years have been great examples of staying invested, especially using low-cost ETFs or a different type of active strategy because you're being rewarded for that. And how about 2020?

Let's turn to that right now. This year was the year of, as you mentioned, short-term treasuries. Everybody wanted to own one-year treasuries or very short-term money market-type funds and these option overlay active strategies. Those were the two I would vote for. What's going to happen in 2024? ETSs are a popularity contest. What's going to be the popularity contest in 2020?

I do think bonds will continue to take more. major market share and attention, whether it's short duration or probably even longer duration now that the Fed is likely on hold. We had the first bond ETF cross 100 billion last week. Bond ETFs are now 25% of AUM between mutual funds and ETFs. That's rapidly, rapidly expanding. So I think you're going to see more issues come out with different types of active bond ETFs, different spins, whether it's core, whether it's long duration. I think that's important. And will you get a return of non-mega-cap growth next year? They have trailed, whether it's small caps or value meaningfully throughout 3023.

And so maybe you get a little bit of mean version. I think those are the areas where active management actually makes sense because some of the indices, whether it's international value or small cap, are very flawed, especially in a 5% interest rate regime. And so I think there will be very high demand for those areas. Anything not mega-cap tech related should see continued interest. Well, that makes a lot of sense for me. But the megatap tech sort of continued to happen this year,

although the inflows weren't as big as you might think at some of the tech ETFs. I'm very surprised. I mean, Kathy Woods' Ark Fund didn't really get any tools for the whole year. Since the peak in 2021, ARC has seen about $8 billion cumulative across their suite and outflows.

Investors are not really returning to that place, even though the fund's had a great run here. Arc is up 55% year to date, I believe, as of today. But they seem to be, investors seem to be hesitant to return to that after the experience they've had a little over the last few years. Is that because they were so traumatized by the drops? I think so.

You had an 80% drop. It was 2,000 all over again for these types of corners. And maybe these types of investors are not, they're still, they're number one focusing on income, right, whether it's optional delays or money market funds. And maybe they're scared of inflation coming back and hikes coming back in a plane. That's going to hurt these types of high beta stocks. So the two trends this year that we saw short-term money market type funds actively managed portfolios where there's some kind of options overlay.

Yeah. You're buying income, essentially. In 2024, you think actively managed bond ETFs are going to? I think active bond, because issuers need to go there now that their mutual fund, the diamond, right, product is now losing money, losing assets. And then active international. And one thing we haven't talked about all is crypto, but that's a whole other elephant in the room.

Well, I'll tell you what I think about this crypto business. We, we, in our beginning October, Bitcoin was 30,000, now it's 42,000. And this, you think we'd agree. It's mostly because of excitement about the Bitcoin. Yeah, absolutely. We saw this with the gold ETF. This is how old I am. 2004, right?

The October, I think it was. And there was all this excitement of, everybody said, this is great. Because, I mean, think about it back then. It was the same thing as Bitcoin. People had gold, physical gold. It's a stupid way to hold gold. Now you got a custodian. You know, you got a vault.

You got a whole, this is the same thing. with Bitcoin. It's the exact same situation, and everyone was excited about it, and they kind of drove gold up a little bit. But after the thing started, it didn't go anywhere for a year. No, it'll... So my thought is they've already bought the ETF, the Bitcoin ETF play has already kind of happened already. And if this thing ever starts in January, February, whatever, it ever starts next year, I think they pulled forward a lot of the gains. Yeah, for all I don't to sell the news thing once we have the official approval date. You say that, I don't. I don't. but I'm only saying there's a, I suspect there's a parallel here with the GLV.

Oh, yeah, I think it absolutely makes sense. But there's excitement because now you have a new asset class that's opening up to everyone involved. So if that's what you want your portfolio, go for it. We'll see how popular are they proved. So far outside of one or two features products, it's been kind of flat. No, and that's very interesting too. InvesQQQQQ believes new innovations create new opportunities, become an agent of Innovation. Invesco QQQ, Invesco Distributors, Inc.