Episode summary
WisdomTree CEO on ETFs, IDing Macro Trends, and More | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · 23 min · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Jonathan Steinberg
Summary
Jonathan Steinberg argued that WisdomTree is best understood as an asset manager built on self-indexing and ETF innovation, not just a fund shop. He traced the firm back to his earlier magazine business, then to the decision to sell media assets and focus on indexing after seeing how the internet would change information access. He said Jeremy Siegel validated WisdomTree’s dividend-weighting idea, which he believes produced higher yields and better after-fee returns than cap-weighted indexing.
He also said the firm has kept evolving beyond that original strategy. WisdomTree now has about 400 ETFs globally, roughly $160 billion in assets, and businesses in Europe, tokenization, and farmland. Steinberg highlighted newer themes such as European defense, Japan, floating-rate Treasuries, and gold-related products, saying the company is good at spotting macro trends and moving quickly to launch products around them.
On gold, Steinberg said central-bank buying and geopolitical risk remain important supports, and he compared gold’s role in portfolios with bitcoin as an alternative store of value. He closed by arguing that WisdomTree’s scale, growth rate, and mix of ETFs, tokenization, and private-asset exposure make the stock timely despite its smaller market cap versus larger rivals.
Key takeaways
- Steinberg said WisdomTree’s original edge was dividend-weighted self-indexing, which he believes improved yields and after-fee returns versus cap-weighted benchmarks.
- He said WisdomTree now manages about $160 billion across roughly 400 ETFs, with meaningful businesses in Europe, tokenization, and farmland.
- Steinberg called European defense one of the firm’s hottest themes, saying its first pure European defense ETF has raised about $5 billion.
- He said gold remains supported by central-bank diversification away from dollars and by its role as an alternative store of value.
- Steinberg said WisdomTree has grown EPS at about a 25% CAGR over five years, and about 50% more recently over three years.
- He argued the stock looks timely because the firm is in faster-growing niches and has beaten BlackRock on public-company performance over the last five years.
Notable quotes
“we manage $ 160 billion uh it's a better business than oldline publishing and so I made my transition”
“what we found was it raised your yields and it really gave you better after fee returns or better returns”
“today obviously that rapper has won you know universally”
“one of the fastest growing organic growth asset managers”
“central banks around the world are trying to diversify away from their dollar exposure”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to At Barrens. I'm Andy Sir and welcome to our guest Jonathan Steinberg, founder and CEO of investment company Wisdom Tree. Jonathan, great to see you. — Thank you. Thank you for having me. — So Wisdom Tree is a publicly traded investment company known for its ETFs. Um, how else do you describe the firm though, Jonathan?
We're an asset manager. Um, so you know, we call ourselves uh an innovator in within financial services, but truly we're in the asset management space. — And how did the firm get started? I mean, you've been in business for many years now. We both have been. Um, you had a company and it sort of morphed and I think 20 years ago was sort of when Wisdom Tree was founded. There's Michael Steinhart was an investor if you remember him. Jeremy Seagull from Wharton's involved. Still involved.
Still involved. — So So tell us about the the genesis.
So I started the company as individual investor magazine back in 1988 and our idea was unbiased independent research for the masses. Um and we took it from something like 20,000 to a half a million subscribers. And I was I loved my journalism.
I was editor-inchief and CEO and the research department reported into me and we had passionate investors. Um, but that's 1988. I think in 1993 Netscape came out and I could sense, you know, free information and so I knew that I had an issue really long-term issue.
Um, I did a story in 1997 on ETFs when the rapper only had $40 billion worldwide. And as a research company, I built my own indexes. And so I went about um I sold my media assets.
I held my indexes. It was a hard journey as a I was already public.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- etfs
- macro trends
- investment strategy
- indexing
- asset management
Companies and tickers mentioned
- WisdomTree
Watch the episode
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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