This Week in ETFs: Are the Summer Doldrums Ending?

Among the funds launching this week were offerings from newcomer Congress Asset Management, Madison Investments, Roundhill Investments, VanEck, SS&C ALPS, First Trust, KraneShares and YieldMax.

The week kicked off with the rollout of three defined outcome ETFs from the FT Cboe Vest family of funds. The funds are as follows:

• FT Cboe Vest U.S. Equity Moderate Buffer ETF – August (GAUG B-)
• FT Cboe Vest U.S. Small Cap Moderate Buffer ETF – August (SAUG C+)
• FT Cboe Vest U.S. Equity Enhance & Moderate Buffer ETF – August (XAUG B-)

All three reflect the price movements of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY A) up to a cap while providing some downside protection. The funds also use flexible exchange (FLEX) options to achieve their objectives.

While GAUG aims to deliver the price return of SPY up to a pre-expenses cap of 15.26%, it protects against losses of up to 15% from the annual reset date. SAUG does the same but with a 19.07% cap.

XAUG is a little different. It aims to deliver twice the upside of SPY’s price return up to a cap of 12.32% with a downside buffer of 15%.

All three funds list on Cboe Global Markets. GAUG and XAUG have expense ratios of 0.85% while SAUG charges 0.90%.

Four inverse and leveraged single-stock ETFs debuted during the week from GraniteShares. Two were tied to Tesla (TSLA) stock, while the others are tied to the stock of NVIDIA (NVD) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The funds are as follows:

• GraniteShares 1.5x Short TSLA Daily ETF (TSDD)
• GraniteShares 1.75x Long TSLA Daily ETF (TSLR)
• GraniteShares 1.5x Short NVDA Daily ETF (NVD)
• GraniteShares 1x Short AMD Daily ETF (AMDS)

AMDS has an expense ratio of 1.15% while the other three ETFs charge 1.50%. All four list on the Nasdaq exchange.

Four funds ceased to trade during the week. They include the following:

• Harbor Small Cap Explorer ETF (QWST )
• AdvisorShares Poseidon Dynamic Cannabis ETF (PSDN )
• ETFMG Sit Ultra Short ETF (VALT C+)
• Noble Absolute Return ETF (NOPE C+)

The closures of another five funds were announced during the week as well, all issued by BlackRock. The BlackRock Future Innovators ETF (BFTR ) will cease to trade after the market close on Oct. 30. Meanwhile, four ETFs marketed under the iShares brand will close at the same time as BFTR. They include the following:

• iShares MSCI Germany Small-Cap ETF (EWGS C+)
• iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Canada ETF (HEWC A-)
• iShares Currency Hedged MSCI United Kingdom ETF (HEWU B+)
• iShares Factors US Value Style ETF (STLV A-)

There were also a number of changes to existing ETFs. The High Yield ETF (HYLD B-) changed its name to the AXS Real Estate Income ETF and its ticker to RINC.

And three Harbor ETFs will change their names. The Harbor Corporate Culture ETF (HAPI ) will become the Harbor Human Capital Factor US Large Cap ETF, while the Harbor Corporate Culture Small Cap ETF (HAPS ) will change its name to the Harbor Human Capital Factor US Small Cap ETF. Finally the Harbor Corporate Culture Leaders ETF (HAPY C+) will change its name to the Harbor Human Capital Factor Unconstrained ETF.

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