Episode summary
ETF Trends and the Rise of Managed Futures
ETF Prime
· · 1 hr · Hosts: Nate Geraci, Simeon Hyman · Guests: Todd Rosenbluth, Andrew Beer
Summary
ETF flows are running at a record pace, with the host and Todd Rosenbluth discussing how the industry has already taken in more than $750 billion and could still challenge $2 trillion if markets stay supportive. They also highlighted how the biggest inflows are still going to core, market-cap-weighted products such as VOO, SPY, and VTI, even as fixed income, growth, and thematic ETFs continue to draw notable demand. The conversation turned to industry milestones, including VOO’s path toward becoming the first $1 trillion ETF and the possibility that Vanguard could eventually overtake BlackRock in total ETF assets.
Rosenbluth also argued that investors should look inside funds rather than assume all ETFs in the same category are interchangeable. He pointed to the emerging markets example, where South Korea exposure helped iShares products beat Vanguard peers, and warned that mixing fund families can create unintended country or factor tilts. That same “know what you own” theme carried into the discussion of newer thematic launches, where he said fees alone do not tell the full story.
The second half focused on managed futures with Andrew Beer of DBI. He described the strategy as a way to capture major macro trends across rates, commodities, and equities, and said DBMF has grown sharply because investors want diversification that can work when stocks and bonds struggle together. He contrasted DBMF’s active structure with the new lower-cost, index-based SDMF, arguing that both aim to deliver the same underlying exposure in different wrappers.
Key takeaways
- The host said ETF industry inflows are already above $750 billion and could still approach $2 trillion if market conditions remain favorable.
- Todd Rosenbluth said VOO is on track to become the first $1 trillion ETF, with another year of strong S&P 500 returns potentially enough to get it there.
- Rosenbluth argued that investors should not assume all emerging-markets ETFs are the same, because South Korea exposure materially changed performance between Vanguard and iShares products.
- Andrew Beer said managed futures are designed to profit from big macro shifts in rates, commodities, and equities, making them useful when stocks and bonds both weaken.
- Beer said DBMF has grown because investors want a low-correlation diversifier that can be accessed through a liquid ETF wrapper.
- Beer said SDMF offers the same underlying strategy as DBMF but in a passive, lower-fee structure with different tax and implementation features.
Notable quotes
“the playbook around diversification stopped working and frankly that's been true for a lot of this decade”
“There's a lot of smart beta success stories, and if the market turns more valueoriented, there's a whole swath of them that have a value tilt or leaning to it”
“the playbook around diversification stopped working and frankly that's been true for a lot of this decade”
“what I came at it, the way I thought it was, it's it's a tremendously valuable strategy that can get these calls really really right, but the way that most firms implement it is very inefficient”
“the strategy itself is tactical about getting in front of things that by definition other people don't see”
How the episode opens
So the playbook around diversification stopped working and frankly that's been true for a lot of this decade and you know right now bonds are down for the year. Um and equities are still up but but the fear of inflation is everywhere. All right.
Joining me will be Andrew Beer, managing member of DBI, who is behind the IMGP DBI managed futures strategy ETF, ticker symbol DBMF, which just over the past year, this thing has grown from about a billion dollars in assets to over $3.7 billion. It's attracting a lot of investor interest. And so we are going to discuss what a managed future strategy is and why you might want to own this.
I'll certainly have Andrew explain why he thinks DBMF is attracting so much investor attention recently. Uh we'll talk about the current positioning of this ETF and what it says about financial markets right now. And then we'll also touch on another ETF that DBI recently partnered with Simplify on the Simplify DBI CTA managed futures index ETF ticker SDMF.
And I'll just say if you haven't heard Andrew before, you're in for a real treat. This is someone who knows the markets and the managed futures category inside and out. Now, to start, I will be joined by my good friend Todd Rosenluth, head of research at Vetify, and we have a nice little ETF grab bag for you this week.
We thought it might be fun to bat around a number of different topics, and so we're going to get into ETF flows and new launches. There are also some pretty big potential industry milestones on the horizon that we'll tell you about. Uh there's an interesting new ETF entrant I want to get Todd's thoughts on.
And then I also have some performance data on emerging market ETFs and I think we'll get Todd uh somewhat agitated.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- etf flows
- new etf launches
- managed futures strategies
- etf industry trends
- managed futures etfs
Companies and tickers mentioned
- VettaFi
- DBi
- iMGP
- Simplify
Watch the episode
Watch “ETF Trends and the Rise of Managed Futures” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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ETF Prime, this episode and its artwork belong to Nate Geraci. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
