A NOTE FROM BOB

It may have been a rocky week, particularly for tech stocks, but inflows continue into equity ETFs, particularly plain-vanilla index ETFs that are used by long-term buy and hold investors.

While many of the popular "thematic" tech ETFs like clean energy (ICLN), 3D Printing (PRNT), Cloud Computing (WCLD) and cybersecurity (CIBR)  are down more than 30%, there has not been massive outflows.  That goes for Cathie Wood's Ark Innovation fund as well.

Our friends at Bitwise Asset Management launched a Crypto Innovators ETF (BITQ) this week to target those that operate within the crypto space.

We had Matt Tuttle from Tuttle Tactical Management on a few weeks ago to talk about his upcoming FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) ETF.  It's finally launching, on May 25th.  It says it will track “securities that reflect current or emerging trends.” What does that include? Apparently, just about everything: stocks anywhere in the world, as well as SPACs, other ETFs, derivatives, volatility products and both leveraged and inverse ETFs.

Reading the SEC tea leaves on a bitcoin ETF. Not entirely sure what this means, but the SEC issued this statement this week:

"The Division of Investment Management staff strongly encourages any investor interested in investing in a mutual fund with exposure to the Bitcoin futures market, as discussed below, to carefully consider the risk disclosure of the fund, the investor’s own risk tolerance, and the possibility, as with all investing, of investor loss."  This may or may not be a negative reading on bitcoin ETFs.  Stone Ridge recently filed for the first Bitcoin mutual fund.  It would exclusively invest in Bitcoin futures.  I am told that it is likely that the SEC issued its statement in part because it knew that filing was coming and wanted to clarify that a futures-based fund has a (narrow) window to approval.  That may be an important distinction.

For more analysis and actionable insights, catch me live on Mondays at 1 PM ET on ETF Edge.

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