April 21, 2025 • 26 mins
It’s that time of the year. Exchange, the big exchange-traded fund conference, was held in Las Vegas this year and brought together many in the ETF industry to talk shop and network. This year's big theme was ETF share class and the selloff in stocks, but no stones were left unturned under the scorching Nevada sun.
On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber go over Balchunas’s “man on the street” interviews with several of the attendees at Exchange, including representatives from VettaFi, Franklin Templeton, Natixis, FactSet, CF Benchmarks and ETF Guide.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Trains.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Belchunas.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Eric April has been a little zany markets all over
the place. Before Libration Day. You went to Vegas for
the Exchange conference. First time it's been there, and we
do a thing every time you do a little roadshow
and go to a conference like this, you speak to people,
bring a mic, get the vibes of the conference. What
was the high level takeaway from the industry.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think it was great. They did
a good job. You know, it is hard to pull
off these conferences. This is my fifteenth year going Joel,
believe it or not, so I feel like I'm a
veteran status. I know. The first year I went, it
was in Hollywood, Florida, which I kind of dug. Hollywood
is like a near Fort Lauderdale. It's kind of not
a place you'd expect a big financial conference. And at
(00:53):
the time, I was in data and the hedge fund
analyst was going to Vegas to see salt and it's salt.
You had like these really high profile speakers like Barack
Obama and Kobe Bryant and stuff. And I remember the
first ETF event, I went to in Hollywood, Florida. There
was a YouTube cover band in ice Cream Social and
I thought, I found my people, Joel. I like that better.
(01:14):
So over the years we went there to Hollywood maybe
nine ten years. Then they moved to Miami for three
four years. Now they've moved to Vegas for the first year.
So at the end of the day, the ETF is
the star. The people were there. That's really ninety percent
of the battle. I also like a place where you
can wake up and take a jog in the morning
and it's warm outside this check that box. It was
(01:36):
a dry heat, but it got a little hot towards
the afternoon, but it was fine to me. I mean,
I'm not a huge gambler, so I was not really
moved either way. I do remember one time I walked
out downstairs at about six thirty am on Monday. That's
probably the most sober time of the week, would you agree,
And you walked through the casino and there's like n
and Elos Don't Bring Me Down is blasting, and I'm
(01:57):
just like, that's like a Saturday night two in the
morning song played Monday morning at six thirty am. That's
the alternative universe. I got a little dose of in
between working the hallways, but I give it good grades.
I thought it was fine and I got a lot done.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, so you brought your mic. We've got some highlights.
You're gonna walk me through your time in Vegas. I
am this time on Trillions Exchange. Okay, who we got first?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I figure we start on the Vegas topic, right. So
here's Todd Rosenbluth, one of the organizers of the event
from Vetaphi friend of the show. Here he is on Vegas.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I have not donated any money to the casino. I
watched Michigan win its basketball game from the sportsbook. I
might have been the only person there watching the game
that didn't have anything on theline other than passion and pride,
and Michigan won. They're in this Sweet sixteen.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, good for you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
First of all, Michigan has since lost. Yes, okay, there's that,
so we can all have a nice laugh about that.
But the question I asked him if he had gambled
that was if you didn't catch that?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I got it curious the vetefy, I feel like this
is a vetify exchange conference, right, So, so, how busy
was Todd while you while you were there.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
There was one time, well I was on in a
podcast with him and his colleague was saying how she
wanted she had to limit the number of espressos he
had every day because he was started. So one time
I saw him walking towards me and he was just
like he was jacked wired, and I was like, no
more espressos, Todd. So, yeah, he had a lot going on.
I've been in that position. It's not easy. It's an
unsung job because people get a complain if something goes wrong,
(03:36):
but if everything's fine, no one says anything. So I
feel for him. He did great though. Okay, next here's
Todd also on the point of the conference of what
he's hoping to achieve.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
The conference is going great. I mean we were talking
on the first full day, but Sunday was great. We
did the ETF education. Your colleague James was on with
a couple other panels, a packed room of financial advisors.
We did session just today on advisors sentiment, what advisors
told us a vertify, and then the ETF implications. There's
(04:08):
a lot of asset managers here, a lot of advisors here.
It's a great buzz here in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, here we are in Vegas for a conference, and yeah, great,
great vibes, great vibes everywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I mean, the heart of the conference started as a
way to educate advisors on ETF's. Advisors have like forty
trillion dollars. They are the biggest consumer of ETFs out there.
So the goal of the conference is to get them in.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You know how you ever go to a bar and
it's like, you know, twenty dollars cover, but like ladies
get in for free.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, oh, things like college.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah that was but yeah, exactly, that's what this is. Like,
I think advisors it's a very minimal fee. The issuers
pay more, and that's the idea. So there was a
mix of advisors. James did the educational part. I usually
do it. I couldn't get there on Sunday. James Safer
James Safer and uh yeah, so that's the heart of
the conference. Okay, Next, next we have our own Katie
(05:00):
I Felt Oh Katielberg News all right, So here she
is on what she thought was the big topic of
the conference.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Well, it's really funny that the big story this year
seems to be what was the big story last year?
Multi share classes, and given the hype around it this year,
and I don't know, maybe we're going to get it
by the end of the third quarter or by the
end of twenty twenty five. I don't know what we
were so excited about this time last year. But it
continues to be the hot topic. And what would it
(05:30):
mean if a thousand or so is ETFs were introduced.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
We've touched on this a couple of times, I think,
but like, is it still percolating? Is it really a
hot topic?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, So I would take a little issue with the
second year in a row because I thought last year
Crypto was probably superseded it, but it was on people's
minds last year. What happened was the acting chair of
the SEC before Atkins gets in, Mark Ayuda, a little
while ago, said that the ETF share classes were priority.
And the reason this is important is that think about
(06:02):
all the mutual funds out there right there's like seven
hundred mutual fund companies. There's like seven thousand mutual funds,
and this would allow these funds to just bolt on
an ETF share class to the actual mutual fund rather
than launching a different like clone that's an ETF so
Vanguard has this patent right now, but it the patent
was up last year, so not anybody can do it.
(06:24):
And we have fifty one mutual funds that have filed
to do this. And at one of the of events
early I mean one of the panels early on, I
think it was Sunday, there was a lawyer round table
and one of them said it was going to all
happen by the summer. So the idea of this was
supposed to be like, oh, in the next couple of years,
(06:44):
but what we're hearing is that's going to come way sooner.
So when Katie said a thousand ETF, she's not lying.
Imagine if all the mutual funds could just immediately come
up with an ETF share class you're looking at, you know,
just an avalanche of new ETFs.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Okay, she was right, it's going to be a thing.
We'll be talking about more. Okay, who do you got next?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Katie? One more time? On Vegas. I figure you'd like
to hear what she had to say about that.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
It feels like there's a breach of trust here of
like what happens in Vegas days in Vegas. Well, let's
hear what she has to say.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
She told me she won one hundred and sixty dollars
and then walked out of the casino, and I'm like, man,
you have no degenerate gene in you, because that's how
they get you. You win early and you're like, oh,
I'm good at this, and then you leave with negative
six hundred like Athenasios.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Let's hear what Katie had to say.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
This is not a very pedestrian friendly city, which I
don't think I was quite prepared for. I'm a big runner,
so I've been going out to run in the morning
and it just is bleak. Man, there is nowhere to run.
It's all highway. That's the big difference that I've noticed.
I will say it is a little strange to come
back from the run and walk through a casino like
(07:56):
in my sweaty clothes. But other than that, I mean,
I think, like the actual hotel itself, the space flows
really nicely. It's it's a little bit more cohesive.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, there's a treadmill. I think you're supposed to go
run on the treadmill.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, apparently the gym was packed every morning, so I
went outside too. Katie had discovered that UNLV is actually
two blocks down and there's a nice soccer field to
run around. But before she told me that, hint, I
went the other way and you start running down these
sidewalks and it's fine, but you come across these dudes
who like look like they've just been up for a
couple of weeks. Yeah, like feathery skin.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
It's Vegas.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and it's like you can see the underbelly of
Vegas out he stands in the sun.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
You stand inside.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
That's what that's what, stay inside. Okay, next all right,
Next up we have David Mann from Franklin. He oversees
their ETF business and he also commented on the ETF
share class, which again big topic.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Well, so it's an act of filing. So we are
you know, only only so much we can say. And
I think they're what fifty other fifty one now is
the official number. But yeah, internally, we are doing a
lot of work to get ready for it. You know.
One of the challenges is we had conversions as an option,
we had launch a new differentiated strategy from scratch as
(09:17):
an option, and now we've got door three. So we
are certainly thinking through which which are the strategies we
haven't done in those first two options that we might
want to do in a share class. So we're having
those conversations.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Now, which strategy is going to win out? Do you think, Man,
it's tough.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
That's a good question. And by the way that we
call it, the three c's, clones, conversions or classes. Conversions
have about eight hundred billion and clones probably in the
same ballpark. Will the ETF share class have more than
eight hundred billion? Yeah? Possibly, because if you bolt on
an ETF share class and you allow investors to just
(09:49):
move over with no tax consequences, well, whatn't you do that?
Imagine having a huge CD collection and Spotify comes in
and says I can get all this onto Spotify like
in Heartbeat. You know, it's basically the same concept of
making this move to the more desirable format just easier
and less costly. It should result in a ton of
(10:11):
money coming over. Vanguard was the test case, and over
the sort of twenty years of that patent, we've seen
a lot of people move over from the mutual fund
of the ETF. So if that's you know, a precedent,
look for both products and flows.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So what will mutual funds look like? After this.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, they're always going to survive.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I was just walking down you know, tenth Street in
Philly on Sunday and this bookshop had like CDs for
sale on the sidewalk. It'll be like that except you know,
fun vehicles.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Bleak.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I mean, would you buy a mutual fund right now?
I mean unless see four and K. Yeah, you're right, okay,
I mean in the four yeah, four and K I
would say, you know, is a place where the money
will come in, probably because ETFs lose a lot of
superpowers inside of four one K. But like I said,
they'll exist, They'll be around. It's going to take a
long time, but all of the new money, all of
(11:09):
the new cash will likely go to the ETF format.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Next, here's David Man of Franklin, who is the only
person who has seen me play tennis. I wanted you
to hear him.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, talk about professional and then personal. Okay, let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
You're the only person in this whole industry who has
seen me play tennis. We played against each other. You
played a Columbia. You're a what if we'd call a
five to zero, which is the highest ranking for I
would call it like a somebody who doesn't play professionally.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
Joel's listening right now.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
How would you rate my game?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
Okay? Lots of potential. Okay, the the the part we
need to work on. So the next time you come
out the backhand so still it's it's you know, as
you start, because as you keep getting better, you be
playing against better players, and the better players are going
to identify your weakest shot and that's where they're going
to pick on. So as soon as we get through
your backhand cleaned up, watch out, you'll be a five
(12:08):
to zero no time.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I don't know about no time, But if you don't
have a backhand, I know where I'm handling the ball,
and I have a good backhand, So let's play.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I got really good advice since I played him, which
is when you do a two handed backhand, you're really
it's a left handed forehand. Okay, and that really changes everything.
I've gotten better already.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I'd love to play with you, but this guy, you know,
the one handed backhand is way more graceful.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It is, it looks cooler, it's just harder. It's a
lot more I have. You have one hander. Wow, let's
play I'm down. Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
David could be on my team, and then you can
find whoever else you want and we'll play doubles.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Okay, next, Okay, we have Elizabeth Kashner of fact Set,
famous ETF analysts, been in the industry forever, and here
she is again on the ETF shirt class. Again. I
bring this up because.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
There's a theme. Yeah, there's a theme.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It was the themes that.
Speaker 7 (12:59):
Puts idea expands to products that are perhaps not index
oriented or to shops that may not be fully ready
for all of the logistics. I think we might see
some bumps along the road to get there. Like we
have to remember that all of the ETF record keeping
happens at the brokerage level, whereas for the mutual fund
(13:20):
it happens at the asset manager level. Vanguard has been
able to pull this off because they have a brokerage, right,
but not every asset manager does, and so it can
be a little bit more difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
This is a good point, right.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Because Vanguard really seems like they were in the driver's
seat for this.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Well, yeah, they invented.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Nobody benefits as much as Vanguard does.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
When I wrote my Bogel book. I went and talked
to Gus Souder. He's the guy who launched VANGUARDDTF business
member Bogle didn't want it, so he had to go
against the founder's wishes. And while they were launching it,
they thought, hey, why don't we make the ETF a
share class. The reason they want to do it back then,
in like the early two thousands was that this way
that the buy and hold money would be protected from
(14:06):
the short term money. So if you wanted to come
in and out of their treasury mutual fund or whatever,
you could just buy the ETF. If you wanted to
buy and hold, you could buy the mutual fund and
just stay there. Now, over the years people found out
you can actually just buy and hold an ETF, but
at the time that was the goal, so they made
a patent on it and it actually worked. Now, the
one thing is Vanguard does have a brokerage. You need
a brokerage platform to buy an ETF. So what if
(14:27):
you're a mutual fund company that doesn't have a platform.
You're going to have to get people over to some
like Schwab or something. That could be tricky. But the
amount of money, the amount of lawyers, and the amount
of companies involved. They're going to figure this out. There's
all these problems are solvable, but they are interesting. The
other thing is Vanguard is an interesting model because they
only see inflows. So Vanguard's model is when you see
(14:50):
inflows all the time. What about a company that does
this but sees outflows regularly? Will the ETF get hit
with capital gains? We like, we call it tax contagion.
These are some unanswered questions. So if I'm going to bet,
I'd say the over undraw on us covering this in
the next like eighteen months is probably like four. I
think this issue is going to come up and be
big and worth covering a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, all right, next.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Next, Okay, I would say the second biggest issue of
the conference was private credit and private equity being put into.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
The ETF wrapper private markets.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Let's go private assets. Yeah, and we just heard recently
Larry Fink has come out and said he wants to
augetize private Vanguard has met with Carlisle Group in Blackstone.
This is happening, So how do you get it? What
do you do? Here's Elizabeth Kashner on the ETFs holding
some of this private assets.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
I think We're going to find out a lot when
we get a reversal in the credit markets. Right, as
long as things are calm, as long as there's not
many redemptions, then you know, then the issue is primarily pricing,
and can you rely on the price that you're getting
on a day to day or even month to month basis.
(15:57):
That's a question mark. Right when you have real only
one bidder and that's also the entity that sold it
to you, you know there's a spread in there. You
just don't really know how big it is, nor do
you know how deep the market is.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
She's got a lot to say. We should probably invite
her on.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, she is very smart and we actually talked for
about a half an hour before I even recorded her.
So what she's saying is that when you have something
that's like less liquid and ETF a good if the
markets are fine and things are going pretty well, that's
it's easy to say, Okay, I think this was a
fine idea. But when there's a huge sell off, you
(16:35):
sort of you can see the illiquidity form. Now there's
been junk bonds put in ETF's high old muni bonds
really had problems in the COVID cell off, so hyd
had a twenty nine percent discount on some days. I
mean that is massive. So I do think there's a
history of you know, experimenting, but I do think sell
offs when you see some of this come to fruition.
(16:56):
So I do think it's fine. ETF investors are used
to having funds that have less liquid stuff in them,
even during selloffs. But she has a good point. This
is part of the you know, debate on whether you
should put something less liquid into what is a super
liquid vehicle, and this debate will keep happening for ever.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I think we're all going to be watching this closely
and like, you know, looking for that thing where everybody
will point to it and go I told you so,
or or maybe the other way too.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
But okay, next, So next up, we have Tyler Williams
of Nate Texas. This guy is I love this guy.
Every time I bumpendo and we have a fun conversation.
He kind of reminds me of Kieran Culkin the actor
when you hear him. He even kind of looks like him,
and he kind of sounds like him. But he's a
has a lot of personality. So I thought I would
ask him a little about working the booth. So here's
(17:46):
a guy standing at a booth all day, and what's
he doing? How does he get people to come over?
Here's what he had to say about that.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
Yeah, well, let me start the giveaways. I guess we've
got a pickleball raffle here for advisors for dropping their
base cars and they win this nice in the Texas
pickleball set, which is a popular sport these days. Sure,
we got our cups, and we had a tide pen
there for folks that maybe spill their coffee on themselves.
But yeah, and then for other handaways, you got our
(18:15):
fact sheets and our brochure.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But will say the.
Speaker 8 (18:18):
Paper route hasn't you know, been maybe as popular as
it once was, but we still have it here. You
certain advisors need to take some literature with them. But yeah,
other than that, boot duty is it's kind of a
you know, it's a hit or miss. Sometimes you get
some advisors interested in your products. Other advisors that haven't
heard of us. You got to give them kind of
the one thousand feet view of who the Texas is.
(18:39):
We're a bit different than some others that we are
multi affiliate, so usually I'll lead with, oh yeah, we
Loomis Sales is our biggest affiliate or Harri, so some
education on our firm, and then advisors that know us,
maybe you know some of the products and managers. Those
are more of a deep dive conversations.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And if somebody's like, say, eight feet away, do you
do you try to, like Jena mind track them to
walking over?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Do you go?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, you go accost them?
Speaker 5 (19:06):
How's that work?
Speaker 8 (19:07):
So I'm lucky that I'm with some of the best
wholesalers in the game. Over here, so that's kind of
their forte. They'll kind of have a little eye contact
move and maybe come on over here things. So you
can kind of tell when someone's lingering they're looking at
your sign. There may be a bit shy if you're
in conversation. So I'll let these guys kind of work
their work, their their magic.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
When you don't flirt with them, you get them with
pick a ball and tide pins. What would be if
you were working the booth? What would be the shwag
that you would be slinging.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I I'm a big fan of the wireless chargers because
when I walk around, I love those. I also like umbrellas.
They go good at home whenever I come home with
gifts because you know, I've been away for a couple
of days, so the gifts ease the burden of my
wife having to like take care of two kids while
I'm gone. But umbrellas, play well socks, and and also
(20:00):
the wireless chargers. I would go with those three. There
was one company that gave away, you know, those sleep masks,
and me and Tyler was the booth next to Tyler
and we're like, what's the metaphor there? Like are you
supposed to just not look at the market or fall asleep?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Like I don't know both of those.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That was a little odd.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, I like both those.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Next up we have Ron de leje of ETF Guide.
Ron is an old school trade publication writer and ETF
nerd from the old days, and it was good seeing him.
And he has a YouTube show called ETF Battles that
have been on a couple of times where they they
take a area like robotics and you have two analysts
basically make the case for two ETFs and then they
(20:48):
vote to see who wins, which is kind of a
cool concept.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Well, just trying to get the sense and I Paul,
say what's happening in the industry and meet fellow colleagues
to innovation in the ETF industry is pretty well known.
Speaker 8 (20:59):
But actually see people in the rush.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I mean that there's no substitute for that.
Speaker 9 (21:03):
You can't do that with social media.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So I asked him why he would still show up
after all these years. I mean, he knows everybody, and
he'd make a good point, you know, and this is
why you should go one of these years, Like, you know,
nothing beats the physical human contact.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, we can do it.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
People ask about you, and I'm like, well, it's almost
almost enigma. Well I almost like say that it's half
a maneuver to keep the show the way it is,
because you don't want Joel going full ETF Like, it's
better that he's protected from the nerdery so that the
show has general semblance.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yes, of safety, Yeah, but I like that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Obviously post pandemic people are back into seeing people, and
it's nice.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
We should do ETF battles together. That'd be a fun one.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Extending the invite here to ron On behalf of both
of us.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Okay, next next up we have Todd Aiken, who I'm
not sure. If you remember he was on this show.
Before he was, Bloomberg wrote an article about who is
using all of these sort of like hot sauce products,
and they found Todd a YouTuber and they interviewed him
and he basically was like, I love these things, yield max,
the double leverage, like this is the retail investor. I
(22:14):
think it's good to actually find the face behind the flows.
And so he was a source for this big article
and we had him on and he was great, and
he said anitier invited him to the conference. But when
I saw him, I was like, I did a double take.
I'm like, is that you? Because you don't normally get
direct retail investors there, it's rare. So here's what he
had to say.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
By the way, if you're interested in that episode, it
was October tenth, twenty twenty four, and the title was
the Rise of the Quick buck etf.
Speaker 9 (22:40):
Well, I'm just trying to, I guess, expand the reach
of my channel. I got invited by some other fund managers,
you know, and so I'm just here to, I guess,
bring awareness to my channel and see if there are
any more ETFs and different funds that we can buy
for my following. That would be safe that you know
that they can invest in that would anchor their orfolio
(23:00):
mostly with indexes and things like that. Maybe there's some
some newer ETF issues here that have some index funds
with dividends, you know, and you know, I'm after the dividends.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Dividends that it was his dividends, especially when they're extra
dividends like the yield max variety.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, he's been busy then.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, no, he's nice guy. Really was nice to see
a retail investor there.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Amazing that he's turned a YouTube channel into a business.
Cool to see. Okay, last one, bring it home.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Okay. Sue Chang from CF Benchmarks actually saw this guy
at the end when everybody was breaking stuff down. So
it's gonna sound a little noisy in the background, like
like there's construction going on. CF Benchmarks if you don't know, Joel,
they actually do the pricing for most of the bitcoin ETFs,
and they're gonna do them for Ether and so they're
crypto kind of behind the scenes, a crucial part of
(23:50):
behind the scenes of cryptos. So I thought we get
a little crypto representation in these interviews.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
This is actually the fourth consecutive year we've good hit
Oh wow, okay, say, there's been a huge sea change
in the attitude to krypton bitcoin. We always whenever we said,
whenever I told people what we did at some of
the social events or hear at our booth, I would
always get a good portion of people give what I
(24:16):
call the look, a sort of a look that says,
oh my word, these people are mad and I don't
want anything to do with them. Over the years, the
proportion of people who give me the look has dropped,
and I would say this year was the first time
no one gave me the look. Now, not everyone is
allocated to bitcoin yet, and there's all kinds of reasons why,
but they don't think I'm crazy anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The look no looks, Joel. What a difference Larry think makes.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, you no longer get the look. You mean it
means you've been legitimized. You can show up, yeah, and
shut the conference down at the end.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And some people were like, isn't it a little noisy
in here? You want to go someplace. I'm like, no,
it's real. I was like, I like the outer noise.
You feel like you're there. Some of these booths are
so big they literally had like ten people swarming to
undo them and like banging all I mean, one of
the booths had a Formula one race car. One booth
was in fact a state street did it was a
(25:11):
we would have loved this. It was like six baskets
real basketballs and then a Connect four underneath, so if
the ball went in, it was one of the Connect four.
So you whoever won, had to make shots and be strategic,
and then if you beat the next guy, your name
went in a raffle for Magic Johnson Basketball, which I
did beat my guy, but I didn't win the ball.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Love that all right. Thanks for taking that mic, and
thanks for all the guests that joined us from Vegas.
Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You can
find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(25:52):
or wherever else you'd like to listen. We'd love to
hear from you. We're on Twitter, I'm at Joel Webbers Show,
He's at Eric Baltuna's. This episode of Trillions was produced
by Magnus and Rickson. Bye
Welcome to Trains.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Belchunas.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Eric April has been a little zany markets all over
the place. Before Libration Day. You went to Vegas for
the Exchange conference. First time it's been there, and we
do a thing every time you do a little roadshow
and go to a conference like this, you speak to people,
bring a mic, get the vibes of the conference. What
was the high level takeaway from the industry.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think it was great. They did
a good job. You know, it is hard to pull
off these conferences. This is my fifteenth year going Joel,
believe it or not, so I feel like I'm a
veteran status. I know. The first year I went, it
was in Hollywood, Florida, which I kind of dug. Hollywood
is like a near Fort Lauderdale. It's kind of not
a place you'd expect a big financial conference. And at
(00:53):
the time, I was in data and the hedge fund
analyst was going to Vegas to see salt and it's salt.
You had like these really high profile speakers like Barack
Obama and Kobe Bryant and stuff. And I remember the
first ETF event, I went to in Hollywood, Florida. There
was a YouTube cover band in ice Cream Social and
I thought, I found my people, Joel. I like that better.
(01:14):
So over the years we went there to Hollywood maybe
nine ten years. Then they moved to Miami for three
four years. Now they've moved to Vegas for the first year.
So at the end of the day, the ETF is
the star. The people were there. That's really ninety percent
of the battle. I also like a place where you
can wake up and take a jog in the morning
and it's warm outside this check that box. It was
(01:36):
a dry heat, but it got a little hot towards
the afternoon, but it was fine to me. I mean,
I'm not a huge gambler, so I was not really
moved either way. I do remember one time I walked
out downstairs at about six thirty am on Monday. That's
probably the most sober time of the week, would you agree,
And you walked through the casino and there's like n
and Elos Don't Bring Me Down is blasting, and I'm
(01:57):
just like, that's like a Saturday night two in the
morning song played Monday morning at six thirty am. That's
the alternative universe. I got a little dose of in
between working the hallways, but I give it good grades.
I thought it was fine and I got a lot done.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, so you brought your mic. We've got some highlights.
You're gonna walk me through your time in Vegas. I
am this time on Trillions Exchange. Okay, who we got first?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I figure we start on the Vegas topic, right. So
here's Todd Rosenbluth, one of the organizers of the event
from Vetaphi friend of the show. Here he is on Vegas.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I have not donated any money to the casino. I
watched Michigan win its basketball game from the sportsbook. I
might have been the only person there watching the game
that didn't have anything on theline other than passion and pride,
and Michigan won. They're in this Sweet sixteen.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, good for you.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
First of all, Michigan has since lost. Yes, okay, there's that,
so we can all have a nice laugh about that.
But the question I asked him if he had gambled
that was if you didn't catch that?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I got it curious the vetefy, I feel like this
is a vetify exchange conference, right, So, so, how busy
was Todd while you while you were there.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
There was one time, well I was on in a
podcast with him and his colleague was saying how she
wanted she had to limit the number of espressos he
had every day because he was started. So one time
I saw him walking towards me and he was just
like he was jacked wired, and I was like, no
more espressos, Todd. So, yeah, he had a lot going on.
I've been in that position. It's not easy. It's an
unsung job because people get a complain if something goes wrong,
(03:36):
but if everything's fine, no one says anything. So I
feel for him. He did great though. Okay, next here's
Todd also on the point of the conference of what
he's hoping to achieve.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
The conference is going great. I mean we were talking
on the first full day, but Sunday was great. We
did the ETF education. Your colleague James was on with
a couple other panels, a packed room of financial advisors.
We did session just today on advisors sentiment, what advisors
told us a vertify, and then the ETF implications. There's
(04:08):
a lot of asset managers here, a lot of advisors here.
It's a great buzz here in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, here we are in Vegas for a conference, and yeah, great,
great vibes, great vibes everywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
I mean, the heart of the conference started as a
way to educate advisors on ETF's. Advisors have like forty
trillion dollars. They are the biggest consumer of ETFs out there.
So the goal of the conference is to get them in.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You know how you ever go to a bar and
it's like, you know, twenty dollars cover, but like ladies
get in for free.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, oh, things like college.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah that was but yeah, exactly, that's what this is. Like,
I think advisors it's a very minimal fee. The issuers
pay more, and that's the idea. So there was a
mix of advisors. James did the educational part. I usually
do it. I couldn't get there on Sunday. James Safer
James Safer and uh yeah, so that's the heart of
the conference. Okay, Next, next we have our own Katie
(05:00):
I Felt Oh Katielberg News all right, So here she
is on what she thought was the big topic of
the conference.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Well, it's really funny that the big story this year
seems to be what was the big story last year?
Multi share classes, and given the hype around it this year,
and I don't know, maybe we're going to get it
by the end of the third quarter or by the
end of twenty twenty five. I don't know what we
were so excited about this time last year. But it
continues to be the hot topic. And what would it
(05:30):
mean if a thousand or so is ETFs were introduced.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
We've touched on this a couple of times, I think,
but like, is it still percolating? Is it really a
hot topic?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, So I would take a little issue with the
second year in a row because I thought last year
Crypto was probably superseded it, but it was on people's
minds last year. What happened was the acting chair of
the SEC before Atkins gets in, Mark Ayuda, a little
while ago, said that the ETF share classes were priority.
And the reason this is important is that think about
(06:02):
all the mutual funds out there right there's like seven
hundred mutual fund companies. There's like seven thousand mutual funds,
and this would allow these funds to just bolt on
an ETF share class to the actual mutual fund rather
than launching a different like clone that's an ETF so
Vanguard has this patent right now, but it the patent
was up last year, so not anybody can do it.
(06:24):
And we have fifty one mutual funds that have filed
to do this. And at one of the of events
early I mean one of the panels early on, I
think it was Sunday, there was a lawyer round table
and one of them said it was going to all
happen by the summer. So the idea of this was
supposed to be like, oh, in the next couple of years,
(06:44):
but what we're hearing is that's going to come way sooner.
So when Katie said a thousand ETF, she's not lying.
Imagine if all the mutual funds could just immediately come
up with an ETF share class you're looking at, you know,
just an avalanche of new ETFs.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Okay, she was right, it's going to be a thing.
We'll be talking about more. Okay, who do you got next?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Katie? One more time? On Vegas. I figure you'd like
to hear what she had to say about that.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
It feels like there's a breach of trust here of
like what happens in Vegas days in Vegas. Well, let's
hear what she has to say.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
She told me she won one hundred and sixty dollars
and then walked out of the casino, and I'm like, man,
you have no degenerate gene in you, because that's how
they get you. You win early and you're like, oh,
I'm good at this, and then you leave with negative
six hundred like Athenasios.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Let's hear what Katie had to say.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
This is not a very pedestrian friendly city, which I
don't think I was quite prepared for. I'm a big runner,
so I've been going out to run in the morning
and it just is bleak. Man, there is nowhere to run.
It's all highway. That's the big difference that I've noticed.
I will say it is a little strange to come
back from the run and walk through a casino like
(07:56):
in my sweaty clothes. But other than that, I mean,
I think, like the actual hotel itself, the space flows
really nicely. It's it's a little bit more cohesive.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, there's a treadmill. I think you're supposed to go
run on the treadmill.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, apparently the gym was packed every morning, so I
went outside too. Katie had discovered that UNLV is actually
two blocks down and there's a nice soccer field to
run around. But before she told me that, hint, I
went the other way and you start running down these
sidewalks and it's fine, but you come across these dudes
who like look like they've just been up for a
couple of weeks. Yeah, like feathery skin.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
It's Vegas.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and it's like you can see the underbelly of
Vegas out he stands in the sun.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
You stand inside.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
That's what that's what, stay inside. Okay, next all right,
Next up we have David Mann from Franklin. He oversees
their ETF business and he also commented on the ETF
share class, which again big topic.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Well, so it's an act of filing. So we are
you know, only only so much we can say. And
I think they're what fifty other fifty one now is
the official number. But yeah, internally, we are doing a
lot of work to get ready for it. You know.
One of the challenges is we had conversions as an option,
we had launch a new differentiated strategy from scratch as
(09:17):
an option, and now we've got door three. So we
are certainly thinking through which which are the strategies we
haven't done in those first two options that we might
want to do in a share class. So we're having
those conversations.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Now, which strategy is going to win out? Do you think, Man,
it's tough.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
That's a good question. And by the way that we
call it, the three c's, clones, conversions or classes. Conversions
have about eight hundred billion and clones probably in the
same ballpark. Will the ETF share class have more than
eight hundred billion? Yeah? Possibly, because if you bolt on
an ETF share class and you allow investors to just
(09:49):
move over with no tax consequences, well, whatn't you do that?
Imagine having a huge CD collection and Spotify comes in
and says I can get all this onto Spotify like
in Heartbeat. You know, it's basically the same concept of
making this move to the more desirable format just easier
and less costly. It should result in a ton of
(10:11):
money coming over. Vanguard was the test case, and over
the sort of twenty years of that patent, we've seen
a lot of people move over from the mutual fund
of the ETF. So if that's you know, a precedent,
look for both products and flows.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So what will mutual funds look like? After this.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, they're always going to survive.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I was just walking down you know, tenth Street in
Philly on Sunday and this bookshop had like CDs for
sale on the sidewalk. It'll be like that except you know,
fun vehicles.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Bleak.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I mean, would you buy a mutual fund right now?
I mean unless see four and K. Yeah, you're right, okay,
I mean in the four yeah, four and K I
would say, you know, is a place where the money
will come in, probably because ETFs lose a lot of
superpowers inside of four one K. But like I said,
they'll exist, They'll be around. It's going to take a
long time, but all of the new money, all of
(11:09):
the new cash will likely go to the ETF format.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Next, here's David Man of Franklin, who is the only
person who has seen me play tennis. I wanted you
to hear him.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Okay, talk about professional and then personal. Okay, let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
You're the only person in this whole industry who has
seen me play tennis. We played against each other. You
played a Columbia. You're a what if we'd call a
five to zero, which is the highest ranking for I
would call it like a somebody who doesn't play professionally.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
Joel's listening right now.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
How would you rate my game?
Speaker 5 (11:45):
Okay? Lots of potential. Okay, the the the part we
need to work on. So the next time you come
out the backhand so still it's it's you know, as
you start, because as you keep getting better, you be
playing against better players, and the better players are going
to identify your weakest shot and that's where they're going
to pick on. So as soon as we get through
your backhand cleaned up, watch out, you'll be a five
(12:08):
to zero no time.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I don't know about no time, But if you don't
have a backhand, I know where I'm handling the ball,
and I have a good backhand, So let's play.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I got really good advice since I played him, which
is when you do a two handed backhand, you're really
it's a left handed forehand. Okay, and that really changes everything.
I've gotten better already.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I'd love to play with you, but this guy, you know,
the one handed backhand is way more graceful.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
It is, it looks cooler, it's just harder. It's a
lot more I have. You have one hander. Wow, let's
play I'm down. Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
David could be on my team, and then you can
find whoever else you want and we'll play doubles.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Okay, next, Okay, we have Elizabeth Kashner of fact Set,
famous ETF analysts, been in the industry forever, and here
she is again on the ETF shirt class. Again. I
bring this up because.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
There's a theme. Yeah, there's a theme.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It was the themes that.
Speaker 7 (12:59):
Puts idea expands to products that are perhaps not index
oriented or to shops that may not be fully ready
for all of the logistics. I think we might see
some bumps along the road to get there. Like we
have to remember that all of the ETF record keeping
happens at the brokerage level, whereas for the mutual fund
(13:20):
it happens at the asset manager level. Vanguard has been
able to pull this off because they have a brokerage, right,
but not every asset manager does, and so it can
be a little bit more difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
This is a good point, right.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Because Vanguard really seems like they were in the driver's
seat for this.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Well, yeah, they invented.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Nobody benefits as much as Vanguard does.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
When I wrote my Bogel book. I went and talked
to Gus Souder. He's the guy who launched VANGUARDDTF business
member Bogle didn't want it, so he had to go
against the founder's wishes. And while they were launching it,
they thought, hey, why don't we make the ETF a
share class. The reason they want to do it back then,
in like the early two thousands was that this way
that the buy and hold money would be protected from
(14:06):
the short term money. So if you wanted to come
in and out of their treasury mutual fund or whatever,
you could just buy the ETF. If you wanted to
buy and hold, you could buy the mutual fund and
just stay there. Now, over the years people found out
you can actually just buy and hold an ETF, but
at the time that was the goal, so they made
a patent on it and it actually worked. Now, the
one thing is Vanguard does have a brokerage. You need
a brokerage platform to buy an ETF. So what if
(14:27):
you're a mutual fund company that doesn't have a platform.
You're going to have to get people over to some
like Schwab or something. That could be tricky. But the
amount of money, the amount of lawyers, and the amount
of companies involved. They're going to figure this out. There's
all these problems are solvable, but they are interesting. The
other thing is Vanguard is an interesting model because they
only see inflows. So Vanguard's model is when you see
(14:50):
inflows all the time. What about a company that does
this but sees outflows regularly? Will the ETF get hit
with capital gains? We like, we call it tax contagion.
These are some unanswered questions. So if I'm going to bet,
I'd say the over undraw on us covering this in
the next like eighteen months is probably like four. I
think this issue is going to come up and be
big and worth covering a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, all right, next.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Next, Okay, I would say the second biggest issue of
the conference was private credit and private equity being put into.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
The ETF wrapper private markets.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Let's go private assets. Yeah, and we just heard recently
Larry Fink has come out and said he wants to
augetize private Vanguard has met with Carlisle Group in Blackstone.
This is happening, So how do you get it? What
do you do? Here's Elizabeth Kashner on the ETFs holding
some of this private assets.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
I think We're going to find out a lot when
we get a reversal in the credit markets. Right, as
long as things are calm, as long as there's not
many redemptions, then you know, then the issue is primarily pricing,
and can you rely on the price that you're getting
on a day to day or even month to month basis.
(15:57):
That's a question mark. Right when you have real only
one bidder and that's also the entity that sold it
to you, you know there's a spread in there. You
just don't really know how big it is, nor do
you know how deep the market is.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
She's got a lot to say. We should probably invite
her on.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, she is very smart and we actually talked for
about a half an hour before I even recorded her.
So what she's saying is that when you have something
that's like less liquid and ETF a good if the
markets are fine and things are going pretty well, that's
it's easy to say, Okay, I think this was a
fine idea. But when there's a huge sell off, you
(16:35):
sort of you can see the illiquidity form. Now there's
been junk bonds put in ETF's high old muni bonds
really had problems in the COVID cell off, so hyd
had a twenty nine percent discount on some days. I
mean that is massive. So I do think there's a
history of you know, experimenting, but I do think sell
offs when you see some of this come to fruition.
(16:56):
So I do think it's fine. ETF investors are used
to having funds that have less liquid stuff in them,
even during selloffs. But she has a good point. This
is part of the you know, debate on whether you
should put something less liquid into what is a super
liquid vehicle, and this debate will keep happening for ever.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I think we're all going to be watching this closely
and like, you know, looking for that thing where everybody
will point to it and go I told you so,
or or maybe the other way too.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
But okay, next, So next up, we have Tyler Williams
of Nate Texas. This guy is I love this guy.
Every time I bumpendo and we have a fun conversation.
He kind of reminds me of Kieran Culkin the actor
when you hear him. He even kind of looks like him,
and he kind of sounds like him. But he's a
has a lot of personality. So I thought I would
ask him a little about working the booth. So here's
(17:46):
a guy standing at a booth all day, and what's
he doing? How does he get people to come over?
Here's what he had to say about that.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
Yeah, well, let me start the giveaways. I guess we've
got a pickleball raffle here for advisors for dropping their
base cars and they win this nice in the Texas
pickleball set, which is a popular sport these days. Sure,
we got our cups, and we had a tide pen
there for folks that maybe spill their coffee on themselves.
But yeah, and then for other handaways, you got our
(18:15):
fact sheets and our brochure.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But will say the.
Speaker 8 (18:18):
Paper route hasn't you know, been maybe as popular as
it once was, but we still have it here. You
certain advisors need to take some literature with them. But yeah,
other than that, boot duty is it's kind of a
you know, it's a hit or miss. Sometimes you get
some advisors interested in your products. Other advisors that haven't
heard of us. You got to give them kind of
the one thousand feet view of who the Texas is.
(18:39):
We're a bit different than some others that we are
multi affiliate, so usually I'll lead with, oh yeah, we
Loomis Sales is our biggest affiliate or Harri, so some
education on our firm, and then advisors that know us,
maybe you know some of the products and managers. Those
are more of a deep dive conversations.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And if somebody's like, say, eight feet away, do you
do you try to, like Jena mind track them to
walking over?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Do you go?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, you go accost them?
Speaker 5 (19:06):
How's that work?
Speaker 8 (19:07):
So I'm lucky that I'm with some of the best
wholesalers in the game. Over here, so that's kind of
their forte. They'll kind of have a little eye contact
move and maybe come on over here things. So you
can kind of tell when someone's lingering they're looking at
your sign. There may be a bit shy if you're
in conversation. So I'll let these guys kind of work
their work, their their magic.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
When you don't flirt with them, you get them with
pick a ball and tide pins. What would be if
you were working the booth? What would be the shwag
that you would be slinging.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I I'm a big fan of the wireless chargers because
when I walk around, I love those. I also like umbrellas.
They go good at home whenever I come home with
gifts because you know, I've been away for a couple
of days, so the gifts ease the burden of my
wife having to like take care of two kids while
I'm gone. But umbrellas, play well socks, and and also
(20:00):
the wireless chargers. I would go with those three. There
was one company that gave away, you know, those sleep masks,
and me and Tyler was the booth next to Tyler
and we're like, what's the metaphor there? Like are you
supposed to just not look at the market or fall asleep?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Like I don't know both of those.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
That was a little odd.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, I like both those.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Next up we have Ron de leje of ETF Guide.
Ron is an old school trade publication writer and ETF
nerd from the old days, and it was good seeing him.
And he has a YouTube show called ETF Battles that
have been on a couple of times where they they
take a area like robotics and you have two analysts
basically make the case for two ETFs and then they
(20:48):
vote to see who wins, which is kind of a
cool concept.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Well, just trying to get the sense and I Paul,
say what's happening in the industry and meet fellow colleagues
to innovation in the ETF industry is pretty well known.
Speaker 8 (20:59):
But actually see people in the rush.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I mean that there's no substitute for that.
Speaker 9 (21:03):
You can't do that with social media.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So I asked him why he would still show up
after all these years. I mean, he knows everybody, and
he'd make a good point, you know, and this is
why you should go one of these years, Like, you know,
nothing beats the physical human contact.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, we can do it.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
People ask about you, and I'm like, well, it's almost
almost enigma. Well I almost like say that it's half
a maneuver to keep the show the way it is,
because you don't want Joel going full ETF Like, it's
better that he's protected from the nerdery so that the
show has general semblance.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yes, of safety, Yeah, but I like that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Obviously post pandemic people are back into seeing people, and
it's nice.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
We should do ETF battles together. That'd be a fun one.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Extending the invite here to ron On behalf of both
of us.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Okay, next next up we have Todd Aiken, who I'm
not sure. If you remember he was on this show.
Before he was, Bloomberg wrote an article about who is
using all of these sort of like hot sauce products,
and they found Todd a YouTuber and they interviewed him
and he basically was like, I love these things, yield max,
the double leverage, like this is the retail investor. I
(22:14):
think it's good to actually find the face behind the flows.
And so he was a source for this big article
and we had him on and he was great, and
he said anitier invited him to the conference. But when
I saw him, I was like, I did a double take.
I'm like, is that you? Because you don't normally get
direct retail investors there, it's rare. So here's what he
had to say.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
By the way, if you're interested in that episode, it
was October tenth, twenty twenty four, and the title was
the Rise of the Quick buck etf.
Speaker 9 (22:40):
Well, I'm just trying to, I guess, expand the reach
of my channel. I got invited by some other fund managers,
you know, and so I'm just here to, I guess,
bring awareness to my channel and see if there are
any more ETFs and different funds that we can buy
for my following. That would be safe that you know
that they can invest in that would anchor their orfolio
(23:00):
mostly with indexes and things like that. Maybe there's some
some newer ETF issues here that have some index funds
with dividends, you know, and you know, I'm after the dividends.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Dividends that it was his dividends, especially when they're extra
dividends like the yield max variety.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, he's been busy then.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, no, he's nice guy. Really was nice to see
a retail investor there.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Amazing that he's turned a YouTube channel into a business.
Cool to see. Okay, last one, bring it home.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Okay. Sue Chang from CF Benchmarks actually saw this guy
at the end when everybody was breaking stuff down. So
it's gonna sound a little noisy in the background, like
like there's construction going on. CF Benchmarks if you don't know, Joel,
they actually do the pricing for most of the bitcoin ETFs,
and they're gonna do them for Ether and so they're
crypto kind of behind the scenes, a crucial part of
(23:50):
behind the scenes of cryptos. So I thought we get
a little crypto representation in these interviews.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
This is actually the fourth consecutive year we've good hit
Oh wow, okay, say, there's been a huge sea change
in the attitude to krypton bitcoin. We always whenever we said,
whenever I told people what we did at some of
the social events or hear at our booth, I would
always get a good portion of people give what I
(24:16):
call the look, a sort of a look that says,
oh my word, these people are mad and I don't
want anything to do with them. Over the years, the
proportion of people who give me the look has dropped,
and I would say this year was the first time
no one gave me the look. Now, not everyone is
allocated to bitcoin yet, and there's all kinds of reasons why,
but they don't think I'm crazy anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
The look no looks, Joel. What a difference Larry think makes.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, you no longer get the look. You mean it
means you've been legitimized. You can show up, yeah, and
shut the conference down at the end.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And some people were like, isn't it a little noisy
in here? You want to go someplace. I'm like, no,
it's real. I was like, I like the outer noise.
You feel like you're there. Some of these booths are
so big they literally had like ten people swarming to
undo them and like banging all I mean, one of
the booths had a Formula one race car. One booth
was in fact a state street did it was a
(25:11):
we would have loved this. It was like six baskets
real basketballs and then a Connect four underneath, so if
the ball went in, it was one of the Connect four.
So you whoever won, had to make shots and be strategic,
and then if you beat the next guy, your name
went in a raffle for Magic Johnson Basketball, which I
did beat my guy, but I didn't win the ball.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Love that all right. Thanks for taking that mic, and
thanks for all the guests that joined us from Vegas.
Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You can
find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
(25:52):
or wherever else you'd like to listen. We'd love to
hear from you. We're on Twitter, I'm at Joel Webbers Show,
He's at Eric Baltuna's. This episode of Trillions was produced
by Magnus and Rickson. Bye
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