Episode summary
Record ETF Inflows, New Nasdaq-100 Competition, and SoFi's ETF Strategy
ETF Prime
· · Hosts: Nate Geraci, Simeon Hyman · Guests: Todd Rosenbluth, Brian Walsh
Summary
ETF flows have already surpassed $1 trillion in 2026, and Todd Rosenluth said that milestone shows how completely ETFs have become the default vehicle for investors. He argued that the second major theme is supply: hundreds of new funds have launched this year, and the market is still rewarding products that solve a real need, especially in fixed income and smart beta. He also highlighted growing competition in the Nasdaq-100 space, where State Street and iShares are challenging Invesco’s QQQ franchise.
Rosenluth also discussed the Defiance KSM TipRanks Analyst ETF, ticker RANK, which blends analyst ratings with technical and momentum screens. He said the strategy is appealing because it combines fundamental and technical perspectives in a rules-based format, and he expects more interest in factor-based approaches as the year continues.
Brian Walsh of SoFi then described the firm’s new SoFi Social 50 Income ETF, SFYI, which sells options on the 50 U.S. stocks most owned by SoFi members to generate monthly income. He said SoFi’s broader ETF strategy is driven by member behavior: the firm launches products only when it sees a clear need, whether that is broad market exposure, AI, income, or member conviction. Walsh also said SoFi sees ETFs used for core, thematic, and even hedging or trading purposes across its platform.
Key takeaways
- Todd Rosenluth said 2026 ETF inflows have already topped $1 trillion, with fixed income ETFs and broad market products driving much of the demand.
- Rosenluth said the Nasdaq-100 category is getting more competitive, but Invesco’s QQQ should keep its liquidity edge while QQQM faces fee pressure.
- The host and Rosenluth said the new RANK ETF tries to combine analyst conviction with technical momentum in a quarterly rebalanced rules-based index.
- Brian Walsh said SFYI is built from the 50 U.S. stocks most owned by SoFi members and uses options to generate monthly income.
- Walsh said SoFi’s ETF launches are meant to solve member problems first, not to flood the market with products.
Notable quotes
“I'm old enough to remember when a trillion dollars in a year for ETFs was an absurd prediction”
“the fact that we hit a trillion dollars before anybody went on summer vacation, that's just bonkers to me”
“We've got $340 billion according to the data that we source from Faxet. that have gone into fixed income ETFs”
“The fact that you can get exposure to that innovative NASDAQ 100 ETF or NASDAQ 100 index, be able to get exposure to that at a even lower price point”
“we looked at it not only our member base but across the broad market we see an increased demand for income and looking at alternative sources of income”
How the episode opens
I'm old enough to remember when a trillion dollars in a year for ETFs was an absurd prediction. All right, joining me will be Brian Walsh, head of advice and planning at SoFi, who currently offers five ETFs, nearly $800 million in assets, including an ETF that just launched last week, the SoFi Social 50 Income ETF, ticker SFYI. This is an optionsbased strategy and we'll certainly get into all the details of that ETF, but we're also going to spend some time just looking at broader ETF and investment trends across the SoFi platform because SoFi has nearly 15 million members that use what the firm calls the everything app for digital financial services.
So that includes investing, borrowing, they offer banking, crypto trading. They really do it all. And so that puts SoFi in a unique position to be able to observe key trends from across all of those areas.
And we're going to focus specifically on some of the broader ETF and investment trends, basically where SoFi members are putting their money right now. So we'll do that. And then I also want to spend a few minutes discussing SoFi's approach to the ETF market overall.
Should be a great conversation. Now to start this week, I'll be joined by the one and only Todd Rosenluth, head of research at Vetify. And as we typically like to do, we're just going to jump around on several different ETF topics, including a few of Todd's big ETF takeaways from the first half of the year.
Uh, we'll also find out a couple of items that Todd is watching for the remainder of the year. Uh, let's see. I also want to ask Todd about State Street and Eyesshares recently entering the NASDAQ 100 ETF category, which is bringing some real competition to Invesco's QQQ and QQQM.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- etf inflows
- nasdaq-100 competition
- sofi etf strategy
- etf product launches
- income etfs
Companies and tickers mentioned
- SOFI
- VettaFi
- SoFi
- Defiance
- TipRanks
Watch the episode
Watch “Record ETF Inflows, New Nasdaq-100 Competition, and SoFi's ETF Strategy” 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.
