| | Good morning and happy Wednesday. Not bad for a rookie. Well, not a rookie exactly, given that Tweedy, Browne has been around for over a century, but the company launched its first ETF just over a year ago. And that product, the Insider + Value ETF (COPY), has returned more than 30% over a year, a MarketWatch columnist wrote on Tuesday. That's nearly double the S&P 500's 16% return during that time. How did the company do it? Well, it applied an insider-buying study it produced, finding that corporate insiders' stock ownership over six months to three years historically showed strong returns that would be a better fit in an ETF than the traditional mutual-fund format Tweedy, Browne has long used, the company told ETF Upside last year. So far, so good, it seems. | | | | | | | | Last year's uncertainty drove investors to safe-haven assets early in the year. So far, though, 2025 doesn't have anything on 2026. For anyone who missed the numerous news alerts, the US captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro over the weekend in a raid that reportedly killed dozens and may lead to a long-term restructuring of oil markets. In comments since Maduro's arrest, President Trump and officials in his administration alluded to a takeover of Greenland, territory controlled by a NATO ally, and said that even without the US taking any action, "Cuba looks like it's ready to fall." "The events in Venezuela over the weekend have added both policy and economic uncertainty," said Aakash Doshi, global head of gold strategy at State Street Investment Management. "If you look at the US Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, even under Trump 1.0, that averaged not that much higher than [under] Biden or Obama. But if you look over the past 12 months, the uncertainty index is more than double what we've seen over the prior 12 years." Gold vs. Liquid Gold Trump has been clear about intentions to open up Venezuela's vast oil reserves and has set up meetings with petroleum company executives, Reuters reported Tuesday. Chevron, the only major US oil company operating in Venezuela, saw a jump in its stock price Monday, before falling Tuesday, with a year-to-date gain of nearly 3%, and the Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Index up less than 2%. Meanwhile, spot gold prices and the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) were up close to 3%. Near-term market impacts may be limited, according to asset managers: - "Venezuela's political shift is unlikely to drive broader market repricing in the very near term," Janus Henderson equities and fixed-income leaders said in a commentary. "Yet its implications — for energy supply, emerging market sovereign bonds, geopolitical tensions and supply chain diversification — warrant continued attention."
- "Safe-haven flows have lifted gold and created brief volatility, but fundamental impacts on USD, equities, commodities and rates remain contained absent further escalation," Adrian Helfert, Westwood CIO of multi-asset strategies, said in a statement.
- One company, Teucrium Investment Advisors, has a different take. That company wasted no time over the weekend, filing with the SEC on Monday for a Venezuela Exposure ETF that it would seek to trade on NYSE Arca.
  Crude Awakening: The US ETF with the highest percentage of its allocation to Chevron, the $247 million Strive US Energy ETF (DRLL) has climbed just under 2% year to date as of Tuesday. That firm did not respond to a request for comment. But the initial rise in oil prices following the US intervention in Venezuela was modest, given no historical precedent of a regime change globally leading to a quick ramp-up in oil production, Doshi noted. "It opens a lot of uncertainty … The events of last weekend are bullish for gold," he said. Written by Emile Hallez | | | | | | Morgan Stanley has a New Year's Resolution that can go right on a ledger … a distributed ledger, that is. The bank is the latest to prep bitcoin and Solana exchange-traded products, filing trusts on Tuesday. Those would mark its first step into the digital-asset product realm, a booming category in which it previously avoided direct participation, though it has allowed its more than 14,000 advisors to offer products from other asset managers. The forthcoming ETPs may enable Morgan Stanley "to consolidate wallet share among its wealth management clients, disincentivizing multihoming with another crypto custodian that might gradually try to compete for other chunks of that customer's business," said Sean Dunlop, director of equity research at Morningstar. Fashionably Late? Given the relatively short time that bitcoin and other digital asset ETPs have been on the market (two years) and the absolute dominance of BlackRock's $73 billion IBIT, it would seem like a daunting entry point for even the largest fund companies with major footprints in other asset classes. Still, traditional financial services companies that initially resisted crypto are coming to terms with the asset. Notably, Vanguard recently allowed its massive base of clients to access some of the more established crypto ETPs. Morgan Stanley itself expanded crypto ETP access last year to all clients, not just those with $1.5 million and big risk tolerance, as it previously had. For the bank, which reported $1.8 trillion in assets under management or supervision as of September, the opportunity likely boils down to a combination of asset management, wealth management and operational efficiency, Dunlop said. Morgan Stanley issued a press release acknowledging the trust filings, though the company declined to comment further. The Long Game: The product filings come not only after early entrants have their own ETPs up and running, but also have launched down-market and even memecoin funds. Since the Securities and Exchange Commission recently allowed the major exchanges to use generic listing standards, which accelerates fund launches, many more funds of different varieties have been filed. Even so, the interest for players like Morgan Stanley might be more about the tech than the products, Dunlop said. "The benefits of distributed ledger technology are increasingly well understood — faster transaction speed, better security and lower cost — and while crypto assets may not be the 'killer use case,' the underlying technology could be quite disruptive in the financial services space," he said. Written by Emile Hallez | | | | | | | | | Everybody, back on the ARK. Cathie Wood's ARK Invest emerged as the top-performing ETF issuer in the US in 2025, a notable turnaround after several years of mixed results. Four ARK exchange-traded funds ranked among the top five equity funds last year, according to Morningstar Direct data. Three of those funds claimed the gold, silver and bronze spots, benefitting from exposure to companies that focus on artificial intelligence, defense and next-generation computing. It's a notable reversal after a 2024 Morningstar report found ARK funds destroyed an estimated $14.3 billion in wealth over the past decade, and a friendly reminder to advisors that market timing is literally everything. "In 2025, investors wanted heat, not safety," said Robby Greengold, a principal of equity strategies at Morningstar, adding that other funds like the Invesco S&P 500 High Beta ETF climbed more than 30%. "It was a year when risk didn't just pay, it paid handsomely." Raiders of the Lost ARK The reason behind ARK's success was a risk-on environment, with the company hitting a "sweet spot" as investors chased returns, Greengold added. But that impressive performance didn't turn into sales. The firm's flagship fund, ARKK, landed in fifth place on the best-performing list with a 35.6% gain last year, but shed more than $1.2 billion in assets. Similarly, ARKW, a fund focused on the next generation of the internet, gained 39% but saw $240 million walk out the door, according to Greengold. "While the funds soared, investors sold," he said. Still, the top 3 performing funds of last year all had ARK Invest on the label: - ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF took the top spot, returning 49% and ending the year with $1.8 billion in AUM.
- The $534.9 million ARK Space & Defense Innovation ETF returned 48%.
- In third place was the $2.1 billion ARK Next Generation Internet ETF mentioned above.
Ups and Downs: ARK's success hasn't come without its share of controversy. While the company's investment approach gained attention during the pandemic for its astronomic performance and daily transparency, its concentrated portfolios drew heavy criticism from analysts. "[Our] manager research team doesn't expect ARK's ETFs to outperform over the long haul," Greengold said. In the near term, though, something tells us that investors are already getting back on board. Written by Sean Allocca | | | | | | | | | |
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.