ETFdb Logo
ETFdb Logo
  • ETF Database
  • Channels
    • Active ETF
    • Alternatives
    • Beyond Basic Beta
    • China Insights
    • Climate Insights
    • Commodities
    • Core Strategies
    • Crypto
    • Disruptive Technology
    • Dividend
    • Dual Impact
    • Emerging Markets
    • Energy Infrastructure
    • ESG
    • ETF Building Blocks
    • ETF Education
    • ETF Strategist
    • Fixed Income
    • Free Cash Flow
    • Future ETFs
    • Global Diversification
    • Gold/Silver/Critical Minerals
    • Innovative ETFs
    • Institutional Income Strategies
    • Leveraged & Inverse
    • Managed Futures
    • Market Insights
    • Megatrends
    • Modern Alpha
    • Multi-Asset
    • Night Effect
    • Portfolio Strategies
    • Retirement Income
    • Richard Bernstein Advisors
    • Tax Efficient Income
    • Thematic Investing
    • Volatility Resource
  • Tools
    • ETF Screener
    • ETF Country Exposure Tool
    • ETF Sector Tracker Tool
    • ETF Database Categories
    • Head-To-Head ETF Comparison Tool
    • ETF Stock Exposure Tool
    • ETF Issuer Fund Flows
    • Indexes
    • Mutual Fund To ETF Converter
    • ETF Data for Journalists
    • ETF Nerds
  • Research
    • First Bitcoin ETF
    • ETF Education
    • Equity Investing
    • Dividend ETFs
    • Leveraged ETFs
    • Inverse ETFs
    • Index Education
    • Index Insights
    • Top ETF Sectors
    • Top ETF Issuers
    • Top ETF Industries
  • Webcasts
  • Themes
    • AI ETFs
    • Blockchain ETFs
    • See all Thematic Investing ETF themes
    • ESG Investing
    • Marijuana ETFs
  • Multimedia
    • ETF 360 Video Series
    • ETF Trends on Videos
    • ETF Trends on Podcasts
    • ETF Prime Podcast
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Swag Store
  • PRO
    • Pro Content
    • Pro Tools
    • Advanced
    • FAQ
    • Pricing
    • Free Sign Up
    • Login
  1. The Origin of an ETF Nerd
News
Share

The Origin of an ETF Nerd

Todd RosenbluthMar 17, 2022
2022-03-17

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and take a look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

For more than a decade, every month has been a strange, different, and wonderful time to be an ETF nerd sharing my opinions with advisors and the broader investment community.

In March 2022, I spent a lot of time talking about the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the geopolitical effects. Single country ETFs like VanEck Russia ETF (RSX B) have been halted, and broad emerging markets ETFs like iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG A) and Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO A+) had their stakes in Russia essentially zeroed out over a few days.

I could continue talking about these tumultuous times. But instead, I wanted to look farther back and share my ETF origin story.

When I first learned about ETFs in 1999, I was a 24-year old mutual fund analyst – with a full head of hair but far less financial acumen. My job was to interview portfolio managers and summarize their investment styles for a weekly publication. A manager told me how he was buying shares of a few fast-growing companies on the Nasdaq.

In passing, he mentioned there was a relatively new product, called QQQ, that held 100 such stocks in one portfolio, much like a mutual fund, but which traded intraday just like a stock. When I finished the interview, I went on to Yahoo Finance to see what he was talking about. After some digging, I bought a few shares of what is now known as Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ B+) and got my first taste of what ETFs offered.

Over the next decade, I switched to a new firm and shifted my focus from analyzing growth mutual funds to providing financial advisors with independent investment recommendations about individual telecom companies. My fundamentally based stock calls were sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Yet, the greatest challenge was patiently convincing investors to take sufficient interest in my narrow slice of the stock market instead of banks, biotechnology, or Internet service providers.

In 2008, when my manager announced at a company town hall that in addition to stock analysis, we’d be building out independent mutual fund and ETF research, I volunteered to be a part of the team. After a couple of years of splitting time between covering quarterly earnings calls and fielding inquiries from reporters and clients about a wide range of ETFs and mutual funds, I wanted a change. I tried to focus on the funds space since that’s where the action was. Even back then, there was a growing need for ETF investor education, given the strong demand and high supply of new products.

There were also a limited number of voices willing to speak openly about the risks and rewards of ETFs, so I found a niche and made friends with like-minded ETF nerds across the industry. Little did I know that there would soon be $7 trillion of assets spread across a universe of nearly 3,000 U.S.-listed ETFs and ETNs.

“ETFs have earned their spot as the product structure of choice for many investors, but there’s still plenty of room for growth in the industry,” Janel Jackson, head of ETF capital markets at Vanguard Group, recently told me. “ETFs offer low-cost, broadly diversified and tax-efficient market exposure, and the ETF ecosystem has time and again proven resilient through periods of heightened market volatility.”

Indeed, despite an early 2022 correction in the stock market and the negative impact of rising interest rates on bond funds, Vanguard gathered an industry-leading $64 billion of net inflows year-to-date through March 11. Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF (VOO A) and Vanguard Total International Bond Market ETF (BNDX A-) were among the firm’s more popular products.

“As the ETF industry continues to evolve and the network of users grows, the core tenants of simplicity, transparency, and flexibility remain central, explained John Hoffman, head of Americas, ETFs & Index Strategies at Invesco. “Using these as a guide, the industry will continue to empower all investors with increasingly precise and intelligent exposure. This is at the core of how we will further enable better capital allocation and ultimately better client outcomes.”

Invesco Optimum Yield Diversified Commodity Strategy No K-1 ETF (PDBC ), Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP B+), and Invesco S&P Emerging Markets Low Volatility ETF (EELV A-) were among ETFs from Invesco with the highest net inflows to start 2022, highlighting the range of its products.

Today, over 100,000 advisors visit ETF Trends and ETF Database websites monthly to stay on top of the ETF market and learn about the wide range of compelling products available through research, videos, and webcasts. Over the last few years, I was honored to publish periodic third-party insights to ETF Trends and ETF Database.

Effective today, I’m very excited to join this growing team of dedicated thought leaders who have digitally connected the investing community for years through an ETF-centric, data-driven platform. I hope you will return to this site to read my regular commentary and directly hear from me on a range of ETF topics. Because as thankful as I am to have had the origin story I did, I’m even more excited about what comes next.

To subscribe to Todd’s research, reports and commentary on a regular basis, please subscribe here.

For more market trends, visit ETF Trends.


Content continues below advertisement

» Popular Pages

  • Tickers
  • Articles

Feb 07

ETF Prime: Balchunas, Crigger, and Nadig Live

Feb 07

Buckley: “Technology Is the Embodiment of Our Service”

Feb 07

Calvert & Morgan Stanley Are Thinking Long-Term on ESG

Feb 07

SPDR, PIMCO Bond Execs Disagree on Rate Cut Probability

Feb 07

Allocating to Liquid Alts Can't be Timed, Experts Say

Feb 07

To Connect With Clients, Tell Your Story

Feb 07

Turning Prospects Into Clients With AdvisorTech

Feb 07

Crigger, Russell Discuss the Value of Content Marketing

Feb 07

Good Financial Planning Can Be Good Storytelling

Feb 07

In Terms of Markets, “Somebody’s Wrong”

QQQ

Invesco QQQ Trust

SPY

SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust

VOO

Vanguard S&P 500 ETF

VGT

Vanguard Information...

SMH

VanEck Semiconductor ETF

XLK

Technology Select Sector SPDR...

VTI

Vanguard Total Stock Market...

SOXX

iShares Semiconductor ETF

BLOK

Amplify Transformational Data...

META

Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF


Content continues below advertisement

Loading Articles...
Help & Info
  • Contact Us
Tools
  • ETF Screener
  • ETF Analyzer
  • Mutual Fund to ETF Converter
  • Head-To-Head ETF Comparison
  • ETF Country Exposure Tool
  • ETF Stock Exposure Tool
  • ETF Performance Visualizer
  • ETF Database Model Portfolios
  • ETF Database Realtime Ratings
  • ETF Database Pro
More Tools
  • ETF Launch Center
  • Financial Advisor & RIA Center
  • ETF Database RSS Feed
Explore ETFs
  • ETF News
  • ETF Picks of the Month
  • ETF Category Reports
  • Premium Articles
  • Alphabetical Listing of ETFs
  • Best ETFs
  • Browse ETFs by ETF Database Category
  • Browse ETFs by Index
  • Browse ETFs by Issuer
  • Compare ETFs
Legal
  • Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
  • © 2023 VettaFi LLC. All rights reserved.
Follow ETF Database
Follow ETF Database

Advertisement

Is Your Portfolio Positioned With Enough Global Exposure?

ETF Education Channel

How to Allocate Commodities in Portfolios

Tom LydonApr 26, 2022
2022-04-26

A long-running debate in asset allocation circles is how much of a portfolio an investor should...

Core Strategies Channel

Why ETFs Experience Limit Up/Down Protections

Karrie GordonMay 13, 2022
2022-05-13

In a digital age where information moves in milliseconds and millions of participants can transact...

}
X