May 12, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, I sit down with Oktay Kavrak, Director of Communications and Strategy at Leverage Shares, a leading provider of exchange-traded products (ETPs). With over a decade in the financial industry and a CFA charter under his belt, Oktay shares a wealth of insights into the evolving world of ETPs, including how they’re reshaping modern investing.
We explore everything from the rise of active ETPs to the misunderstood role of leverage in trading strategies. Oktay also talks about his personal journey, why he left the comfort of traditional finance roles, and how he’s found fulfillment in a fast-paced, multifaceted position.
Here’s what we cover in the episode:
📊 The evolution of ETPs and how they differ from ETFs
🧠 Why active ETPs are gaining traction despite passive investing’s dominance
📉 The role of leverage in ETPs and the education gap around complex products
💸 Fee compression in the ETF/ETP space and what it means for product sustainability
🔍 The most overlooked trend in finance today: derivatives-based income strategies
🎓 Oktay’s honest take on the value of the CFA designation
🔥 Career advice for young finance professionals (and why mistakes matter more than wins)
🤖 The future of AI in finance and how it could reshape day-to-day roles
🧠 The real skills that matter in finance today (hint: it’s not advanced math)
🏈 Finding balance: how Oktay recharges outside of the financial world
Oktay also shares how he stumbled into his current role, why job titles don’t always reflect day-to-day work, and what people often get wrong about the finance industry.
Oh, and if you haven't already... subscribe to The Blunt Dollar for more raw and honest finance conversations.
New episodes drop every other week! Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
And last, but not least, don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-ramirez-moreno-cfa/
Enjoy the episode!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any financial decisions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the things that people forget is like the
ETF or ATP structure.
At the end of the day, it'sjust a vehicle.
Whether you want to drive a caror a minivan or a pickup truck,
you know, it's just a vehiclefor you to get to your
destination.
We are the biggest single stockETP issuer in Europe, but we
actually pioneered the conceptof single stock leveraged ETP.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Very, very excited today because we have Octay
Kavrak on the podcast.
Octay is a director ofcommunications and strategy at
Leverage Shares.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You don't have to be a professional in the field to
be a good investor.
So I really hope that a lot ofthe boring stuff that we
currently have to do by that Imean the number crunching, the
repetitive tasks can be replacedby generative AI.
One of the things that youreally have to get into your
head is that you're going tolearn a lot more from your
mistakes than your successes.
(00:54):
Getting burned out and tryingto recover from that is probably
going to be 10 times harderthan just to stick to a normal
schedule.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
This is the Blonde Dollar with Ignacio Ramirez.
Quick disclaimer the views andopinions expressed in this
podcast are those of thespeakers and do not constitute
financial investment or legaladvice.
This content is forinformational and educational
purposes only and should not berelied upon as a substitute for
(01:29):
professional advice.
Always do your own research andconsult a qualified advisor
before making any financialdecisions.
All investments involve risk,including the potential loss of
capital.
And now let's get started withthe episode.
Hello everyone and welcome to anew episode of the Blunt Dollar.
Very, very excited todaybecause we have Octay Kavrak on
(01:52):
the podcast.
Octay is a Director ofCommunications and Strategy at
Leverage Shares, a provider ofexchange-traded products, etps.
If you're into innovativeinvestment products, octay is
definitely someone you need toknow.
Octay has been working in theindustry for around 12 years and
(02:13):
has a background in finance andbanking, and he's worked in
institutions such as De Giro orUnicredit.
Octay is a CFA charter holder,he holds a bachelor in finance
and accounting and basically,octave is at the cutting edge of
financial product strategy andall the new technology
(02:35):
developments taking place today.
So I can't wait to dive intohis journey, to explore the
world of ETPs and to hearfirsthand what is next for the
industry?
Octave.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Thanks a lot, ignacio , really happy to be here.
Thanks for the generous introand congrats on the pod and I'm
sure it's going to be a greatepisode.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So, of course, a lot of the conversation today is
going to be moving around ETPs,given that that's your area of
expertise.
So for our listeners that arenot very familiarized with ETPs,
can you tell them what is anETP Sure?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I mean, just think of it like this it's 99%
functionally the same as an ETF,right?
So you have a brokerage account.
You can buy and sell this justlike any other stock or ETF.
Etp is basically the umbrellaterm.
So within that ETP structureyou have different sub-segments
like ETF, ETC and ETN.
(03:35):
We can get into that if youreally want to get a bit
technical, but basically it'sthe overarching term that we
like to use, especially inEurope, because it's a structure
that's well understood, becauseit gives you more niche access
to, let's say, investment typesor things like concentrated
baskets or individual stocks,something you can't do within
(03:57):
the ETF structure.
Just because regulations sayyou can't do so, that's because
you can't exceed a certain levelof leverage.
You have to have a certainlevel of diversification, et
cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So one of the trends that I noticed in the world of
ETPs over probably this lastdecade was they're getting more
and more specialized.
What is driving this trend?
Is it like a demand reason, uh,or or something else?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So I would say it, it's basically a function of a
lot of different trends andfactors, right?
So when you think about theaverage, you know let's start
with the average investor.
It can be retail, it can beprofessional, et cetera.
For their longer term holdings,there's a pretty good chance
that people already have the bigindex exposures at the core.
(04:52):
So if you want to compete intoday's world of ETFs and ETPs,
you have to have a valueproposition that gives you
exposure beyond what peoplealready own, right?
So whether that's going to besmall caps, whether it's going
to be so, whether that's goingto be small caps, whether it's
going to be active, whether it'sgoing to be a long short
strategy, whether it's going tobe a leveraged ETF, you just
have to be very creative in yourvalue proposition, because this
(05:17):
structure has been around forthe better part of two decades
even more right.
So by now, there's all types ofproducts out there and if you
want to compete, there's a goodchance that there's already a
product that exists that's a lotcheaper and they already have
the branding and marketingcapabilities that you don't.
So you really have to come witha new value proposition that
the others simply don't offercurrently.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So you need to clarify something for me,
because you were talking aboutactive ETPs.
I know that passive strategieshave been dominating much of the
ETP and ETF space over the lastyears, but we're starting to
see more and more of theseactive ETPs entering the market,
and to me it almost sounds abit like a contradiction.
(06:00):
Can you maybe elaborate what isan active ETP, and do you think
this trend of active ETPs isgoing to keep growing?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So it's good that you bring up that point because you
are definitely right.
Whenever people hear the wordETF, they basically equate that
with passive investing, right.
So people think of ETFs as justinvesting in the big market or
getting exposure to the bigmarket indices.
So when we say active, webasically mean that you have
(06:32):
some portfolio manager or youhave some discretionary
decision-making on the backend.
So there aren't specific rulesor there's not a specific index
that they have to abide by.
So if they see certain thingshappening in the market or if
they have certain indicatorsthat have been breached or have
been met, based on those orbased on new information that
(06:52):
comes in, that portfolio managerhas the discretion to make
moves on the go.
Basically, and active it's beenall the hype lately.
So one of the reasons is partof what I previously mentioned.
People already have in theircore all of the exposure to the
broader indices.
So people also want experiencedportfolio managers, whether
(07:16):
it's to hedge existing exposures, whether it's to get access to
more niche corners of the market.
So you know there's been a lotof buzz over the last few months
about getting exposure even tothe private markets.
That's something that can onlybe done with active portfolio
management.
So that's one of the reasonsthat I think albeit it's still a
relatively smaller portion ofthe overall ETF ETP space,
(07:39):
globally it's definitely onethat I think is going to make a
lot of headlines in 2025.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Globally, it's definitely one that I think is
going to make a lot of headlinesin 2025.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So just to clarify what is, then, the difference
between an active ETP and atraditional mutual fund?
So the main difference is thatone trades on exchange
throughout the trading day andthe other one only trades once a
day at a certain price calledthe net asset value.
So whenever something isexchange traded, you can trade
it throughout the trading dayusing a brokerage app.
(08:13):
So you just you know, you openup the app and you can buy and
sell whenever you want,basically as long as the
market's open, and you also getan added level of transparency
compared to mutual funds.
So an ETP they have to showtheir holdings every single day,
so you have to be able to seewhat they're holding on that
specific day, and there arecertain reasons for that
(08:34):
requirement.
Right, and for mutual funds,that same requirement is a
little bit.
I mean, it's not the same.
And the other key difference isprobably in terms of fees.
If you compare the equivalentexchange traded version of a
mutual fund, there's a prettygood chance that it's a lot
cheaper than the mutual fundoffering.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You were talking about the rise of thematic ETPs.
I mean, obviously I know that'sbeen an increasingly popular
trend over the recent years.
All my episodes we end uptalking about AI and the future
of the finance industry.
I mean, I'm particularly excitedto it's like a broken record by
(09:15):
now, but yeah no, but it's true, you know, like it's the
million dollar question howdisruptive is this technology
going to be?
I guess not only for finance,but the whole world.
Is this technology going to be?
I guess not only for finance,but the whole world, and I can
for sure say that, at least whenit comes to my work, I can
(09:37):
already see many, many ways interms of how things are going to
get improved and automated inthe coming years.
I'm excited about it, I'mtrying to keep an eye on it and
hopefully, you know, I'lleducate myself enough to be able
to use these tools tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I mean, I personally have never been, you know, too
keen on the quantitative side ofthings, like I'm not, I don't
like going through Excels and Idon't like going through a lot
of databases and collecting andmining data.
And you know, I would reallylike to leave that part to AI
and focus more on thequalitative sort of the
conclusions you can make fromthe data, because I think,
(10:09):
especially in the future,whatever's left of what's
required of humans, that's wherewe can still add the most value
and leave the rest to therobots.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let's say yeah, I read that the things that are
going to be hardest to do bymachines are things related to
empathy.
Actually, the things that aregoing to be hardest to do by
machines, um, uh, things relatedto empathy actually.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Um empathy Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, empathy, maybe even storytelling.
But um, yeah, I'll.
I'll keep you posted, as I deepas as I I dig a little bit
deeper in the upcoming years onthat.
I'm curious to to see if there'ssome sort of study that shows,
like, the interest in inthematic etps and and uh, the
(10:50):
performance of of the marketoverall.
But yeah, I'm not surprisedabout what you were saying.
We come from two years where wehad pretty much 20 plus uh
percent uh total returns withwith the smp and a lot of people
were more than happy with thatand they thought they didn't
need to go into more nichestrategies in order to get nice
(11:13):
returns.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean when you see that kindof or those kinds of returns,
you almost think, do I reallyneed anything else?
And especially if you're ayounger investor, you haven't
really seen, outside of COVID, atrue bear market, a real
drawdown where you see yourmoney being evaporated in front
of your eyes.
And that's when you realizethat, okay, maybe I shouldn't
have traded here on margin fromthe broker, or maybe I shouldn't
(11:39):
have bought all of theseexposures that have a high
correlation to each otherwithout having a proper hedge in
place.
But that's why I save tosomebody that has never invested
.
The easiest way or the best wayto get involved or to buy your
first stock is just to do it.
I mean, when you have skin inthe game, that's usually when
(12:03):
you really start payingattention, because everyone can
shove all of these webinars andpodcasts and YouTube videos in
your face, but until youactually see what it physically
feels like to buy, to sell, tomaybe lose a little bit of money
, then you really can'tunderstand what it's like.
And what I can say is it's notas scary as a lot of people
(12:24):
think.
You don't need to have amaster's in finance to get
started.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I mean, at some point you just got to go for it and
you learn by doing.
But the first time you tradeyeah, definitely, even if it's
like $3, it's stressful.
I mean you feel like your wholelife is on the line.
It's stressful.
I mean you feel like your wholelife is on the line.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
But that's the good thing, right, Because in the
past you had to have, you know,you had minimum account deposits
, so there was like a.
There was a huge barrier toentry, especially for younger
investors that maybe didn't have, you know, a few thousand saved
up.
But now you can literally, likeyou mentioned, just put in a
few dollars and buy your firstshare and you know, start to
understand the differencebetween market, between a market
(13:08):
order and a limit order, andwhat the difference is, and you
know just all the differentthings that go into the actual,
the intricacies of investing.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
So, yeah, there's so much materials online.
It's super easy to educateyourself online.
It's super easy to educateyourself, um, but yeah, the, the
yeah, the overall message isyeah, it's not as complicated
and it's a matter of of just youknow getting to it.
And what I like about you knowabout investing, particularly
the first time you invest, isthat you learn so much about
(13:40):
yourself.
Uh, because I think it was miketyson that said once everyone
has a plan until you get punchedin the face and and and.
To me, that's the same when itcomes to investing.
You have all your ideas, allyour plans, but all of a sudden,
when you, when you have some,you know some, some savings on
the line, and and, and you seethe green or the red in in your
(14:00):
portfolio, you start, you know,reacting in different ways and
and realize, oh man, I'mactually more risk averse than
what I thought, or I'm actuallywilling to take a bit more risk
in this part of my holdings, andI don't know.
Personally, I find itfascinating.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And it's one of those subjects where you really have
to keep educating yourself,right, Because you read all of
this theory, you look at pastperformance and then you think,
like bonds are a gooddiversifier to equities, and
then the correlation among themsort of increases.
You have positive correlationand then at some point you have
close to zero correlation.
So then it's like, okay, how doI sort of offset the risk that
(14:38):
I have taken on one side of theportfolio, Because traditionally
the asset class that issupposed to help is not really
doing it anymore, 100%.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, I feel we could have a whole different episode
just talking about stock bondcorrelation.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I don't want to talk about bonds because I know you
love bonds, you know I make outa living out of bonds right.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It's the most beautiful of asset classes, but
yeah, we can talk about that inanother episode.
So I mean, we've talked a lotabout first-time investors and
especially young investors andthe need for instant
gratification or making a quickbuck, and leverage obviously
plays a big role of that.
There's been a lot of headlinesaround how leverage ATPs can
(15:25):
amplify returns but alsoobviously, on the downside, have
been criticized for being riskyand unsuitable for a lot of
investors.
Do you think these concerns arevalid, or is it more like a
case of investors not fullyunderstanding the risk they're
taking or not doing theirhomework appropriately?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
It's, of course, 100% valid.
These are not investment toolsfor everyone.
It's just another tool in thetool shed, basically for people
who are most likely activetraders, people who are closely
monitoring the market and peoplewho have specific convictions
(16:09):
on individual stocks, on certainETFs or on certain asset
classes.
So of course, the concerns arevalid, but these concerns,
honestly, they've been recycledand chewed up and repeated for
decades now.
So, as an issuer, we are thebiggest single stock ETP issuer
in Europe.
So many people may not know this, but we actually pioneered the
(16:34):
concept of single stockleveraged ETP.
So leveraged ETFs and ETPs havebeen around for the better part
of two decades, but those weretraditionally around the broad
indices, fixed incomecommodities like gold or silver,
but nobody had done it aroundan individual stock.
So we pioneered that conceptand initially I saw a few
(16:57):
articles where people werecommenting like why do people
need this?
Or it's know it's a uselessproduct.
But you know, fast forward afew years and our products are,
week after week, literally themost traded products on London
Stock Exchange, and we see thesame across the other exchanges
where they're listed.
And even if you look overseasinto the US, that same trend is
(17:19):
playing out right, except thatin the US you can't go as high
in terms of leverage as you canhere in Europe, and everybody,
or all of the issuers, stressthe exact same things.
These are not for everybody.
They should be monitoredclosely.
It's not, especially if youhold for longer than a day.
It's not going to exactlymultiply what the underlying has
(17:42):
done by the leverage factorbecause of something called a
daily reset and compounding anddecay.
There's a lot of terms that youhave to learn before putting
money into these productsbecause chances are, if you've
never traded them, they're goingto be a little bit different
from what you expect.
But as an issuer, I think we doa pretty good job at leverage
(18:03):
shares just because we put a lotof energy and resources behind
it.
So we do videos, we go on alltypes of media.
Now we go on podcasts hosted byIgnacio and we try to make
these products as digestible andunderstandable as possible.
So hopefully the educationimproves, because a bad investor
(18:25):
experience is in.
It's not in anybody's interest.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, I feel like there's two opposing forces at
play right now, like, on oneside, the very principle of ETPs
.
I guess it's aboutdemocratizing the investment
game, like opening the openingdoors and making it accessible
for everyone, but at the sametime, you know, especially when
it comes to more complexstrategies involving leverage
(18:51):
and so on sometimes I wondershould there be more
restrictions on which ETPsretail investors should be able
to access, or do you think thatwould go against the very
principle of an ATP?
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
(19:14):
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling?
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Um, this is a question that's not black or
white, right.
Obviously, there's a lot ofnuance here.
So ultimately especially youknow from the viewpoint of an
issuer you know that theultimate gatekeeper to the
products is.
The people that get access tothese products have been
(20:00):
properly vetted, They've taken aquiz or they've proven that
they have trading experienceover the years.
That essentially proves theyunderstand the products.
I'm not a huge fan of holdinginvestors hands and telling them
what they can and can't trade,so I think, historically, that's
been one of the mostfrustrating sort of trends as an
(20:24):
investor.
Just to give you an exampleright In the US, they finally
approved the spot Bitcoin ETFs,and that's something we had here
in Europe for a lot earlier.
I think it was back in 2019,when the first such product was
launched and when peoplecouldn't get that access to
whatever they wanted to investin, which, in that case, was
(20:46):
Bitcoin.
You're going to go to the wildwest, right, so you're going to
try to open up a wallet.
You're going to try to go onthese other exchanges that might
not necessarily be legit, soyou're still going to try to get
that.
It's not like the rules aren'tgoing to change your behavior
they're going to try to.
They're going to force you tofind an alternative way to do
what you want, and I feel thesame way with leverage.
(21:06):
So, when you think about thingslike you know trading options,
trading, futures in Europe,trading CFDs, trading on margin
in many of the instances there'sa lot of factors that make them
a lot more difficult tounderstand, especially from you
know, let's say, an individualinvestor's perspective, and in
many cases, you can even losemore than what you put in, which
(21:28):
would be a nightmare forsomebody right?
The bottom line here is thatyou know, if people can't do
what they already want to dothrough the normal ways, they're
just going to find analternative.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Okay, I have a question regarding fees.
You talked about fees beinggenerally low.
Yeah, the ETP family ofproducts is notoriously known
for having lower fees than othertypes of products in the
(22:01):
finance industry.
But I feel like this race tothe bottom is kind of squeezing
the margins for issuers and, insome instances, even is raising
concerns about sustainability.
So my question for you is isthis sustainable really?
For you is is this sustainablereally, or does this drive for
(22:29):
lower fees?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Is it really starting to compromise the quality of
the product?
So the fee war has beensomething that's been going on
for a long time, right, andthat's why in the other topic we
touched on earlier fees.
You know it's one of the thingsthat you can, that you can
adjust to basicallydifferentiate your offering.
But you know, especially ifyou're offering something that
(22:51):
has already been on the marketfor I don't know a few years,
there's a good chance thatthere's a bigger company that
can do a lower fee than thanwhat you can offer, that there's
a bigger company that can do alower fee than what you can
offer.
So at one point, fee is justone of the factors that an
investor is going to look into.
They're going to look at otherthings like trading volumes.
They're going to look at thingslike history.
They're going to look at thingslike liquidity of the product.
(23:16):
They're going to look at AUM.
So the fee is just one factor.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
At the end of the day , I guess what is crucial for
anyone thinking about this more,about the ETP family of
products?
What steps should they followin order to familiarize
(23:57):
themselves a little bit more?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I mean, there's so much information out there.
You just have to decide whatyour preferred source of
information is right.
So if you get easily bored byreading, go on YouTube.
There's so much content outthere.
Literally, you can just type ininvesting in ETFs or getting
started in investing.
It's a lot easier than whatmany people assume and you don't
(24:24):
have to be a professional inthe field to be a good investor.
So I think that's one of thefew misunderstandings, or one of
the things that peopleunderestimate is that you should
probably be a financialprofessional to understand all
of the products available in theworld, do proper analysis in
order to be successful, and it'sjust.
It's not the case.
(24:45):
So whether it's going to bethrough a YouTube short, whether
you want to sign up for the CFAprogram, like Ignacio, or
whether you want to just open up, ask ChatGPT about it.
There's so many ways that youcan get your initial sources of
information on getting educatedin ETFs.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And I was wondering yeah, has the CFA designation
helped you in your career?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
And do you think it's worth it, given the incredible
amount of work it takes to getit?
I think one of the things mostpeople respect when they meet
CFA charter holders is theirdedication, because it shows
that they had an end goal inmind and they didn't stop until
they achieved it.
So I think perseverance is oneof the first attributes that
(25:58):
people think of when they see aCFA charter holder one of the
first attributes that peoplethink of when they see a CFA
charter holder.
So, in terms of my own career,I think it's helped me a lot,
not just because here in thelocal CFA community I've
obviously made a lot of contacts, but it really broadens your
horizon, right.
So whether you're an accountant,whether you work in financial
markets, whether you work inprivate equity, there's so much
(26:19):
that you don't know which youdon't know.
I mean, the unknowns are somuch out there that when you
read about a topic you're forcedto that you wouldn't probably
read otherwise in whatever newssource you usually use to
consume your news.
Then all of a sudden, you startlearning things that you had no
idea about in the past, and Ithink for me, that's probably
(26:40):
been one of the areas where I'veseen the most value added just
because there were so manythings that I hadn't even
thought about in the past.
But the other thing is thatit's so wide and it's so
overarching in terms of all ofthe topics covered.
At some point you have tospecialize and just keep in mind
(27:01):
that you're probably not goingto need or use a huge portion of
what you studied, butnonetheless it's going to be
eye-popping in terms of all thethings that you're exposed to.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, at the end of the day,the designation gives you a very
comprehensive view of theindustry and about markets, and
I think that's the beauty andthe curse of it, right Like you
get to go in depth in so manydifferent topics.
But at the end of the day itcan also be a little bit
(27:34):
intimidating, even the sheeramount of material you have to
go through.
But, for me personally it wasdefinitely worth it, and I also
completely agree with whatyou're saying about the contacts
you're making.
There's all those localsocieties and it's just fun to
attend them and meet some peers.
(27:55):
You automatically get a littlebit of sympathy from everyone
else whenever you see they're acharter holder, because you know
what they've gone through andthey understand your pain.
So that's good.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, exactly, I mean , and there's a lot of people
that don't stop at the CFA.
You know they go for you knowthree or four other certificates
and it's.
You know, at some point I'mjust like, how do you have the
energy to do it?
It's really impressive, it'scrazy.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I think the rule should be if it doesn't fit in
your name in your first line ofyour LinkedIn profile, it means
you shouldn't do it.
It's too much when you startgetting 304 designations.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
There's a law of diminishing returns.
Right At some point it has to.
Like you know, I don't thinkyou're getting any more benefit
out of adding more titles andmore studying, yeah, f-a-k-i-a,
f-r-a-m, yeah, yeah, exactly,president of the world, and it's
like, okay, there's too much.
Now it's time to work.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
You know, now that you've been studying for 40
years, now you have to actuallywork.
So, going back to the financeindustry now, not ETP
specifically, but the sector asa whole what is a trend that
you're witnessing that you feelnot enough people are paying
attention to at the moment, thatyou feel not enough people are
paying attention to at themoment?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
So I think one of the biggest trends, probably over
the last year, year and a half,is derivatives-based ETFs and
ETPs, and what I'm talking aboutmore specifically is those with
certain options strategies likecovered calls.
(29:43):
So we've seen the proliferanceof these in the US, right, so
it's an industry that's beengrowing hand over fist and
everybody's been launching acovered call strategy, from
something that gives youexposure to the S&P 500, to
single stocks and now evencrypto, like individual crypto
assets.
That's something that's beenpicking up in Europe as well,
and it's also one of our focuspoints for this year because,
(30:07):
from my view, it's basically atthe, or it's very close to the
heart of the three biggesttrends in ETFs.
One is active investing, likewe mentioned a little bit
earlier.
The other one is single stockETPs and the third one is
derivatives based ETPs.
So I think these are strategiesthat people are going to start
(30:28):
paying more and more attentionto, especially given the strong
bull market that we've had overthe last two years.
I think income is going to be akey trend this year, and
derivatives based ETPs ingeneral.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I think it's going to be um, I think it's going to be
another year where they shineyeah, interesting, which once
again, like, makes me thinkabout, yeah, the complexity of
these and and the degree ofeducation that, uh, that
investors should, um, shouldhave, or the time they should
invest in order to reallyunderstand what they're what
(31:01):
they're trading.
I think it's very interesting.
Uh, I like the, the, thesetrends, and I think, you know,
it makes a lot of sense.
But, yeah, I think anyone thatis willing to go into this
market should, for sure, uh,make their due diligence and and
make sure they understand whatthey're putting their money in.
That's something I always liketo say.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I think what I just want to highlight one thing.
It's like one of the thingsthat people forget is, like the
ETF or ATP structure, at the endof the day, it's just a vehicle
, right?
So it's like, whether you wantto drive a car or a minivan or a
pickup truck, you know it'sjust a vehicle for you to get to
your destination.
So, like what I mentioned withthe derivatives-based products,
(31:49):
it's like you can trade themyourself.
You can get that exposurethrough a mutual fund or you can
get that through an ETF or ATP.
So the exchange-traded versionbasically just gives you a more
convenient way of you knowgetting or achieving that,
achieving your goal.
So, at the end of the day, it'sjust a vehicle that allows you
(32:10):
to get that exposure that you'relooking for.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
So maybe that ties to something else that I wanted to
ask you about, about your joband the space you operate in.
To ask you about your job andthe space you operate in, what
do you think is the biggestmisconception that people have
about your area of expertise,which are ETPs?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, I think we sort of touched on this earlier.
They basically equate the termwith passive investing.
So I don't think it does itjustice just because the year is
2025.
And at this point, an ETF cangive you as esoteric or as
straightforward exposure asyou're looking for.
So, as long as the demand isout there, I think people would
(32:55):
be surprised what can be sort ofoffered within an ETF structure
.
So, like I mentioned, I think,earlier in the pod, whether it's
private markets, whether it'scrypto, whether it's single
stocks, whether it'sderivatives-based, there is so
much out there that is availablewithin the ETF structure that I
(33:17):
think a lot of people would beconfused or a lot of people
would be surprised.
And I think one fact that mightbe interesting for people to
hear is that today, for example,on the New York Stock Exchange,
you have more exchange tradedfunds than you have stocks.
So that just shows you in howmany ways the market has been
sliced and diced and packagedinto this wrapper.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I didn't know that.
That's a good fun fact to know.
Now, talking about things thatpeople don't know, I want to
maybe go a little bit deeper now, into you and into your career.
What is something about yourjob that would surprise most
people?
Hey there, quick ad break.
(34:02):
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling.
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I think some people would be surprised to hear that,
despite the title of director,there's a lot of legwork that I
do that might not necessarilymatch what people expect.
So, as you might know or maybeyou don't know just because
you're working in a big firm,but when you work in a smaller
company you have to wear a lotof hats, right?
(34:51):
So the title might entail thatI only deal with sort of like PR
relations and maybe a littlebit about company strategy, but
there's a lot more in between.
Sometimes I have to proofreadsocial media posts, sometimes I
have to speak with the marketingteam and tell them which
product to push for thisparticular quarter, and then
sometimes I have to speak withthe product team and be like
(35:11):
which product to push for thisparticular quarter?
And then sometimes I have tospeak with the product team and
be like, hey, instead of puttingout a product around, let's say
another, let's say AI name,let's focus on quantum computing
stocks.
So it's sort of my job to payattention to the market and try
to coordinate all of the tasksinternally.
So sometimes it might soundlike a sexy position, but I can
(35:34):
tell you that at times it's alot more boring than people
might imagine.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I like that.
I mean, I think it's cool whenyou have, like, different tasks,
because if you do exactly thesame thing day in, day out, at
the end of the day you can get abit bored.
But by touching at so manydifferent things, I guess it
makes your day super exciting.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
So yeah, and I've always been one of those people,
for better or worse, that getseasily bored.
So the fact that I have to dodifferent things is actually one
of the things that has kept meexcited in this or interested in
this role.
Prior to joining LeverageShares, I think my longest
tenure in any other company waslike two years or three years,
(36:18):
and now that I'm well over myfifth year at the company, I
think it's a good sign thathaving to do different tasks it
probably rubs off well on me,because otherwise I get bored
pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
That's just the fact Makes sense, and a lot of our
listeners will probably be earlyin their career, and a question
I like to ask our guests iswhat do you think young
professionals entering theindustry need to hear, but that
they rarely do?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So I think one of the things that you really have to
get into your head is thatyou're going to learn a lot more
from your mistakes than yoursuccesses.
So I mean, at the time it'sgoing to feel like crap.
You're going to feel.
I mean your ego is going to beshot.
You're going to feel really badabout yourself, maybe your
(37:19):
self-confidence isn't going tobe great.
But I guarantee you, by tryingdifferent things and, you know,
making sometimes even a fool ofyourself, you're probably going
to achieve a lot more thanplaying it safe and trying to
impress everybody else.
You know you have to rememberthat the brain it's almost like
a time machine for like cringememories.
And then it's you feel like agoldfish whenever you do
something right, right.
(37:40):
So everything that you do wrongyou remember for the longest
time.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
So when you make a mistake, trust me, there's a
really high chance that you'renot going to repeat it yeah, you
learn from doing, from mistakesand from not doing it again For
those same young professionals.
What is one belief about thefinance industry that you think
the general public getsgenerally wrong?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
The biggest one for me is that you have to be sort
of a math whiz to be good infinance, because I think people
automatically assume that youhave like a strong background in
mathematics or statistics orphysics to be good in finance,
which is just not the case.
You know, when people sort ofuse this broad term finance, I
(38:30):
think a lot of times peopleforget that finance can mean
anything from like a back officeaccountant, that like a very
small local shop, to aquantitative analyst, that like
a big hedge fund or aninvestment firm.
So it varies quite a lot andthere's a lot you can do with
the skill set that you have.
So don't underestimate yourselfand don't think you have to be
(38:52):
a specialist in one specificthing to be successful.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Are you a math whiz?
Definitely not.
I feel you speak very goodEnglish and you express yourself
very good, which is somethingthat not a lot of people are
able to do, especially not likenative English speakers, because
you are from Bulgaria, if I'mnot wrong, right?
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yes, that's correct.
I was born in Bulgaria and Ilived about 11 years in the US.
I was that sexy In SouthFlorida.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, yeah, because I feel one of the biggest skills
you can get nowadays working infinance is being able to present
properly and being good atstorytelling.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
I agree, I agree.
But what I say to a lot ofpeople because you know, I guess
, thanks for the compliment, bythe way, thanks for the
compliment, by the way but whatI say to a lot of people,
especially those with a specificaccent, whether it's a Spanish
one or a French one, I sayembrace it, because it makes you
that much more interesting andexotic.
(40:04):
Because I guarantee, if you'respeaking with an American accent
in Europe, it might soundinteresting, but if you're
speaking with an American accentin the US, it's not that
interesting.
So just embrace your accentthen, and yeah, that's my key
message.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I'll embrace my Spanish accent as much as I can.
Yes, you definitely should, soI know a topic you're interested
in, and we briefly touched uponalready in the podcast, is AI.
What's your take on the role ofAI in the future of investment
(40:41):
decisions and the financeindustry in general?
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I'm really bad at predicting things, so I'm not
going to make a prediction, butI'm going to say what I'm hoping
for.
So I really hope that a lot ofthe boring stuff that we
currently have to do can bereplaced by the bots or the
robots or generative AI, and bythat I mean the number crunching
, the repetitive tasks, thestuff that makes us not want to
(41:07):
get up in the morning and go towork, right, that makes us not
want to get up in the morningand go to work, right.
Once you take all of that stuffout, that's when we can actually
start thinking out of the box,because once you do repetitive
tasks for multiple hours on end,all of a sudden your brain is
fried, right.
You can't think creatively.
So my hope is that, sooner thanlater, a lot of these tasks are
(41:32):
going to be automated by AI orwhatever tools are going to be
at our disposal, and I reallyhope that we use the time that
we have at our disposal in thefuture a lot more efficiently,
because I think all of us sortof overestimate how much of it
we have, because, yeah, I thinkall of us sort of overestimate
(41:53):
how much of it we have.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, 100%.
I think we should be focusingon the most value-adding type of
activities and leave the restfor the machine especially those
that are painful to do.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Again, going back to your career, I'm curious to hear
because I mean looking at yourprofile you've been working in
very different places what wasthe most challenging decision
you faced over the years and howdid you navigate it?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
One of the things that's most hypocritical that I
hear from a lot of people is notdoing what you're preaching,
basically.
So a lot of people are like,okay, you should do this, but in
the meantime they're doing thecomplete opposite.
So when I say leaving yourcomfort zone, I say that to your
(42:47):
listeners because that's what Idid and that's when I basically
learned the most in my career,right?
So I did, I guess, a prettytraditional finance path working
in like a tech company in thefinance department and then
working for a brokerage and thenworking once again, you know,
in the financial space, at abank and at some point I got so
(43:07):
tired of it Predictability wasdriving me insane.
So tired of it.
Predictability was driving meinsane.
I felt like a robot and I hateit.
I hate it honestly.
So at that point I decided itmight entail a pay cut, it might
entail an unpredictable future,but that's the kind of thing
that excites you when you don'tknow what the day ahead is going
(43:28):
to present.
For me, that's interesting.
For a lot of people it could bestressful and at times it will
be, but for the most part, Ithink that's where you become a
lot more resilient, especiallyas a professional and maybe on
an individual level and you weretalking about leaving the
comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
I have another question about leaving.
Was there ever a moment whenyou considered leaving the
financial industry at all?
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I think I was on the verge of doing that.
I'm saying I think just becauseat this point I don't even
remember that well, but I knowthat during my first job out of
university I really didn't likethe job I was doing.
The second job I probablylearned a lot more, but once
(44:19):
again I came to sort of thatpeak where you sort of reach
your full potential at a certaincompany, in a particular
position, and then you realizeor you start to think, you know,
is this all this career entails?
Like, is this what financemeans?
Is this what people werebragging about for all these
years?
And ultimately I came to therealization that it's not the
(44:42):
field itself that was boring, itwas the actual work I was doing
that was boring for me.
Because, you know, some peopletake pride and they're really
good at doing more repetitiveand administrative and sort of
these number crunching tasks,and for me it just it didn't do
it.
I always like to be sort of,you know, having a more front
(45:03):
office role, a people likerelationship, I should say a
relationship manager kind ofrole, but one that not only has
the, let's say, the hard skillside but also the soft skill
side.
Like I said, I get bored easily, so I always like to have a mix
of things.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
And how do you come across those roles where you
were most fulfilled in, like theone you have now, as I
understand?
Like was it like something thatyou kind of stumbled upon, or
were you super proactive andtook specific steps in order to
to get there?
Speaker 1 (45:36):
if I have to be completely honest, I stumbled
upon it.
Um, it wasn't something that Iwas that I was looking for
specifically, but you know, Ijust decided to apply just
because of, first of all, it wasthe job, job requirements.
It sounded interesting to me.
It said you should be good withpeople.
It said you might have totravel.
(45:57):
It said you'll have to speakwith sophisticated institutional
investors.
I said, okay, that soundspretty interesting.
So I had a first meeting withthe COO of the company and then,
ultimately, the secondinterview was with the CEO of
the company, who was also in theUS and one of the former
(46:18):
co-founders of another ETFbusiness, and I was really
impressed by not only what theyhad done in the past, but also
the fact that they had a visionfor something that almost was
non-existent in terms of marketexposure.
Um, and they seemed like reallysmart guys, and that turned out
to be the case, and I said,okay, if I'm gonna fail, I might
(46:40):
as well fail with, you know,smarter people than myself
around me.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
And that's what I decided to do, and and that's
how I ended up here I love thatthey say that you should always
surround yourself, uh, bysmarter people than you so that
you can learn as much as humanlypossible, and I think that,
yeah, that's always a good thingto do.
So we've been reflecting a loton your career and I was
(47:07):
wondering if there's a specificfinancial lesson you wish you
had learned earlier there's aspecific financial lesson you
wish you had learned earlier.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Um, I would say, invest earlier.
I don't know how much of acliche this is, but it's
definitely relevant for me.
And it's really painful math ifyou start, you know, actually
doing the calculations.
Like you know what if Iinvested ten dollars every day
into this specific stock for acertain amount of time?
Um, because, because it's justnot that scary and, like I said,
(47:39):
you learn a lot more by doingthan than learning, so
everything just is acceleratedand happens faster.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
So if I could give myself one, or if I could turn
back time and tell myself onething, it would be invest yeah,
I mean the the power ofcompounding is absolutely
magnificent and it does make alot of difference at the end of
35, 40 years, having startedlike two, three years apart.
Um, because the last years iswhere really that compounding uh
(48:10):
contributes the the most toyour holdings.
And yeah, I fully agree withyou, the earlier you start, the
better.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
What about you?
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
your biggest regret is I think my regret has more to
do with the type of investmentsI've made.
I think I've been toorisk-averse.
It's not necessarily that Istarted investing late, but I've
always.
I hate.
I think I hate losing moneymore than I like making money.
(48:41):
There's a mental biasexplaining that.
I don't remember what it is.
I think it's loss aversion,yeah, and because of that, you
know, I've always played it likekind of super safe, um, and in
hindsight I mean, of course youknow you can always do better,
(49:03):
you can do worse, uh.
But yeah, if I could changesomething, would it would have
been maybe taking a little bitmore risk in my early, uh,
investing years, because the theway I was investing at the
beginning was probably closer tohow someone close to retirement
was investing rather than how a20-something year old was.
(49:35):
Again, as we were saying, youlearn from doing.
You learn about yourself overthe years through mistakes and
the important thing is to getbetter 1% every day, as I like
to say.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Absolutely, absolutely Compounding.
That's the key word.
100%.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
And a couple last questions, maybe related to
family, and obviously thefinance industry is notoriously
known for having long hours andbeing relatively hard compared
to other sectors.
How have you managed to findthat work-life balance over the
years, If you found it at all?
(50:08):
I don't know.
Maybe you're spending 15 hoursin the office a day and you
haven't told me.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
No, I don't think I would be alive.
If that was the case, my wifewould have killed me.
We've all heard the horrorstories with the investment
bankers working 60, 70, 80 hoursa week, and as soon as I heard
that, I knew that kind oflifestyle would never work for
me.
And as soon as I heard that Iknew that kind of lifestyle
would never work for me.
So one of the things that Ilive by is balance.
(50:38):
So, whether it's work, whetherit's social life, whether it's
going on vacation or focusing ona hobby, I think balance is the
key.
So one of the things that Imake sure I don't do is not to
overwork, because getting burnedout and trying to recover from
that is probably going to be 10times harder than to sort of
(51:00):
keep a normal, you know, just tostick to a normal schedule and
get something done over two dayswhich you could have done, you
know, over one day if you had,you know, overdone it.
So I would say balance is thekey.
I would say I'm not the best atit, but I think I've done a
pretty good job, just because Ihaven't gotten sick of what I've
(51:20):
been doing for the last fewyears.
So I think that's a decentindicator.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
And how do you find balance?
What's your thing?
Is it like sleep, sports,friends, spending time with the
family?
What charges your batteries.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
When I was living in the US, I almost didn't watch
any American football and I waswatching European normal
football.
And then, now that I live backhere in Europe, I watch more
American football and less ofEuropean football.
So I watch the NFL, I watchsports in general, I try to go
(51:59):
to the gym from time to time andthe lion's share of my free
time is obviously dedicated tomy wife, and the rest is
probably hanging out withfriends.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Okay, octave, so I think we've covered most of the
things I wanted to ask you about.
That's been super interesting,very, very insightful,
especially for people like methat don't know as much as ETPs
as you do.
So thank you for that, thankyou for your time.
All of you, by the way, have toknow that Octay is pretty big
(52:33):
on socials.
He's very active on LinkedIn,so make sure you give him a
follow.
And, octay, thank you so muchfor coming to the Blunt Dollar,
and I wish you all the best forthis year.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Awesome.
Thanks a lot for having me on,and I'm really looking forward
to seeing how fast this podcastis going to grow.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
We'll see, take care and talk to you soon.
The Blunt Dollar is written,produced, hosted and edited by
me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound, design and
production come straight from mydesk and, occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listening, and join me in the next
(53:16):
episode of the Blunt Dollar formore raw, honest finance
conversations.
One of the things that people forget is like the
ETF or ATP structure.
At the end of the day, it'sjust a vehicle.
Whether you want to drive a caror a minivan or a pickup truck,
you know, it's just a vehiclefor you to get to your
destination.
We are the biggest single stockETP issuer in Europe, but we
actually pioneered the conceptof single stock leveraged ETP.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Very, very excited today because we have Octay
Kavrak on the podcast.
Octay is a director ofcommunications and strategy at
Leverage Shares.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You don't have to be a professional in the field to
be a good investor.
So I really hope that a lot ofthe boring stuff that we
currently have to do by that Imean the number crunching, the
repetitive tasks can be replacedby generative AI.
One of the things that youreally have to get into your
head is that you're going tolearn a lot more from your
mistakes than your successes.
(00:54):
Getting burned out and tryingto recover from that is probably
going to be 10 times harderthan just to stick to a normal
schedule.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
This is the Blonde Dollar with Ignacio Ramirez.
Quick disclaimer the views andopinions expressed in this
podcast are those of thespeakers and do not constitute
financial investment or legaladvice.
This content is forinformational and educational
purposes only and should not berelied upon as a substitute for
(01:29):
professional advice.
Always do your own research andconsult a qualified advisor
before making any financialdecisions.
All investments involve risk,including the potential loss of
capital.
And now let's get started withthe episode.
Hello everyone and welcome to anew episode of the Blunt Dollar.
Very, very excited todaybecause we have Octay Kavrak on
(01:52):
the podcast.
Octay is a Director ofCommunications and Strategy at
Leverage Shares, a provider ofexchange-traded products, etps.
If you're into innovativeinvestment products, octay is
definitely someone you need toknow.
Octay has been working in theindustry for around 12 years and
(02:13):
has a background in finance andbanking, and he's worked in
institutions such as De Giro orUnicredit.
Octay is a CFA charter holder,he holds a bachelor in finance
and accounting and basically,octave is at the cutting edge of
financial product strategy andall the new technology
(02:35):
developments taking place today.
So I can't wait to dive intohis journey, to explore the
world of ETPs and to hearfirsthand what is next for the
industry?
Octave.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Thanks a lot, ignacio , really happy to be here.
Thanks for the generous introand congrats on the pod and I'm
sure it's going to be a greatepisode.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So, of course, a lot of the conversation today is
going to be moving around ETPs,given that that's your area of
expertise.
So for our listeners that arenot very familiarized with ETPs,
can you tell them what is anETP Sure?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I mean, just think of it like this it's 99%
functionally the same as an ETF,right?
So you have a brokerage account.
You can buy and sell this justlike any other stock or ETF.
Etp is basically the umbrellaterm.
So within that ETP structureyou have different sub-segments
like ETF, ETC and ETN.
(03:35):
We can get into that if youreally want to get a bit
technical, but basically it'sthe overarching term that we
like to use, especially inEurope, because it's a structure
that's well understood, becauseit gives you more niche access
to, let's say, investment typesor things like concentrated
baskets or individual stocks,something you can't do within
(03:57):
the ETF structure.
Just because regulations sayyou can't do so, that's because
you can't exceed a certain levelof leverage.
You have to have a certainlevel of diversification, et
cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So one of the trends that I noticed in the world of
ETPs over probably this lastdecade was they're getting more
and more specialized.
What is driving this trend?
Is it like a demand reason, uh,or or something else?
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So I would say it, it's basically a function of a
lot of different trends andfactors, right?
So when you think about theaverage, you know let's start
with the average investor.
It can be retail, it can beprofessional, et cetera.
For their longer term holdings,there's a pretty good chance
that people already have the bigindex exposures at the core.
(04:52):
So if you want to compete intoday's world of ETFs and ETPs,
you have to have a valueproposition that gives you
exposure beyond what peoplealready own, right?
So whether that's going to besmall caps, whether it's going
to be so, whether that's goingto be small caps, whether it's
going to be active, whether it'sgoing to be a long short
strategy, whether it's going tobe a leveraged ETF, you just
have to be very creative in yourvalue proposition, because this
(05:17):
structure has been around forthe better part of two decades
even more right.
So by now, there's all types ofproducts out there and if you
want to compete, there's a goodchance that there's already a
product that exists that's a lotcheaper and they already have
the branding and marketingcapabilities that you don't.
So you really have to come witha new value proposition that
the others simply don't offercurrently.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So you need to clarify something for me,
because you were talking aboutactive ETPs.
I know that passive strategieshave been dominating much of the
ETP and ETF space over the lastyears, but we're starting to
see more and more of theseactive ETPs entering the market,
and to me it almost sounds abit like a contradiction.
(06:00):
Can you maybe elaborate what isan active ETP, and do you think
this trend of active ETPs isgoing to keep growing?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So it's good that you bring up that point because you
are definitely right.
Whenever people hear the wordETF, they basically equate that
with passive investing, right.
So people think of ETFs as justinvesting in the big market or
getting exposure to the bigmarket indices.
So when we say active, webasically mean that you have
(06:32):
some portfolio manager or youhave some discretionary
decision-making on the backend.
So there aren't specific rulesor there's not a specific index
that they have to abide by.
So if they see certain thingshappening in the market or if
they have certain indicatorsthat have been breached or have
been met, based on those orbased on new information that
(06:52):
comes in, that portfolio managerhas the discretion to make
moves on the go.
Basically, and active it's beenall the hype lately.
So one of the reasons is partof what I previously mentioned.
People already have in theircore all of the exposure to the
broader indices.
So people also want experiencedportfolio managers, whether
(07:16):
it's to hedge existing exposures, whether it's to get access to
more niche corners of the market.
So you know there's been a lotof buzz over the last few months
about getting exposure even tothe private markets.
That's something that can onlybe done with active portfolio
management.
So that's one of the reasonsthat I think albeit it's still a
relatively smaller portion ofthe overall ETF ETP space,
(07:39):
globally it's definitely onethat I think is going to make a
lot of headlines in 2025.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Globally, it's definitely one that I think is
going to make a lot of headlinesin 2025.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So just to clarify what is, then, the difference
between an active ETP and atraditional mutual fund?
So the main difference is thatone trades on exchange
throughout the trading day andthe other one only trades once a
day at a certain price calledthe net asset value.
So whenever something isexchange traded, you can trade
it throughout the trading dayusing a brokerage app.
(08:13):
So you just you know, you openup the app and you can buy and
sell whenever you want,basically as long as the
market's open, and you also getan added level of transparency
compared to mutual funds.
So an ETP they have to showtheir holdings every single day,
so you have to be able to seewhat they're holding on that
specific day, and there arecertain reasons for that
(08:34):
requirement.
Right, and for mutual funds,that same requirement is a
little bit.
I mean, it's not the same.
And the other key difference isprobably in terms of fees.
If you compare the equivalentexchange traded version of a
mutual fund, there's a prettygood chance that it's a lot
cheaper than the mutual fundoffering.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You were talking about the rise of thematic ETPs.
I mean, obviously I know that'sbeen an increasingly popular
trend over the recent years.
All my episodes we end uptalking about AI and the future
of the finance industry.
I mean, I'm particularly excitedto it's like a broken record by
(09:15):
now, but yeah no, but it's true, you know, like it's the
million dollar question howdisruptive is this technology
going to be?
I guess not only for finance,but the whole world.
Is this technology going to be?
I guess not only for finance,but the whole world, and I can
for sure say that, at least whenit comes to my work, I can
(09:37):
already see many, many ways interms of how things are going to
get improved and automated inthe coming years.
I'm excited about it, I'mtrying to keep an eye on it and
hopefully, you know, I'lleducate myself enough to be able
to use these tools tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I mean, I personally have never been, you know, too
keen on the quantitative side ofthings, like I'm not, I don't
like going through Excels and Idon't like going through a lot
of databases and collecting andmining data.
And you know, I would reallylike to leave that part to AI
and focus more on thequalitative sort of the
conclusions you can make fromthe data, because I think,
(10:09):
especially in the future,whatever's left of what's
required of humans, that's wherewe can still add the most value
and leave the rest to therobots.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let's say yeah, I read that the things that are
going to be hardest to do bymachines are things related to
empathy.
Actually, the things that aregoing to be hardest to do by
machines, um, uh, things relatedto empathy actually.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Um empathy Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, empathy, maybe even storytelling.
But um, yeah, I'll.
I'll keep you posted, as I deepas as I I dig a little bit
deeper in the upcoming years onthat.
I'm curious to to see if there'ssome sort of study that shows,
like, the interest in inthematic etps and and uh, the
(10:50):
performance of of the marketoverall.
But yeah, I'm not surprisedabout what you were saying.
We come from two years where wehad pretty much 20 plus uh
percent uh total returns withwith the smp and a lot of people
were more than happy with thatand they thought they didn't
need to go into more nichestrategies in order to get nice
(11:13):
returns.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean when you see that kindof or those kinds of returns,
you almost think, do I reallyneed anything else?
And especially if you're ayounger investor, you haven't
really seen, outside of COVID, atrue bear market, a real
drawdown where you see yourmoney being evaporated in front
of your eyes.
And that's when you realizethat, okay, maybe I shouldn't
have traded here on margin fromthe broker, or maybe I shouldn't
(11:39):
have bought all of theseexposures that have a high
correlation to each otherwithout having a proper hedge in
place.
But that's why I save tosomebody that has never invested
.
The easiest way or the best wayto get involved or to buy your
first stock is just to do it.
I mean, when you have skin inthe game, that's usually when
(12:03):
you really start payingattention, because everyone can
shove all of these webinars andpodcasts and YouTube videos in
your face, but until youactually see what it physically
feels like to buy, to sell, tomaybe lose a little bit of money
, then you really can'tunderstand what it's like.
And what I can say is it's notas scary as a lot of people
(12:24):
think.
You don't need to have amaster's in finance to get
started.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I mean, at some point you just got to go for it and
you learn by doing.
But the first time you tradeyeah, definitely, even if it's
like $3, it's stressful.
I mean you feel like your wholelife is on the line.
It's stressful.
I mean you feel like your wholelife is on the line.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
But that's the good thing, right, Because in the
past you had to have, you know,you had minimum account deposits
, so there was like a.
There was a huge barrier toentry, especially for younger
investors that maybe didn't have, you know, a few thousand saved
up.
But now you can literally, likeyou mentioned, just put in a
few dollars and buy your firstshare and you know, start to
understand the differencebetween market, between a market
(13:08):
order and a limit order, andwhat the difference is, and you
know just all the differentthings that go into the actual,
the intricacies of investing.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
So, yeah, there's so much materials online.
It's super easy to educateyourself online.
It's super easy to educateyourself, um, but yeah, the, the
yeah, the overall message isyeah, it's not as complicated
and it's a matter of of just youknow getting to it.
And what I like about you knowabout investing, particularly
the first time you invest, isthat you learn so much about
(13:40):
yourself.
Uh, because I think it was miketyson that said once everyone
has a plan until you get punchedin the face and and and.
To me, that's the same when itcomes to investing.
You have all your ideas, allyour plans, but all of a sudden,
when you, when you have some,you know some, some savings on
the line, and and, and you seethe green or the red in in your
(14:00):
portfolio, you start, you know,reacting in different ways and
and realize, oh man, I'mactually more risk averse than
what I thought, or I'm actuallywilling to take a bit more risk
in this part of my holdings, andI don't know.
Personally, I find itfascinating.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
And it's one of those subjects where you really have
to keep educating yourself,right, Because you read all of
this theory, you look at pastperformance and then you think,
like bonds are a gooddiversifier to equities, and
then the correlation among themsort of increases.
You have positive correlationand then at some point you have
close to zero correlation.
So then it's like, okay, how doI sort of offset the risk that
(14:38):
I have taken on one side of theportfolio, Because traditionally
the asset class that issupposed to help is not really
doing it anymore, 100%.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, I feel we could have a whole different episode
just talking about stock bondcorrelation.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I don't want to talk about bonds because I know you
love bonds, you know I make outa living out of bonds right.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
It's the most beautiful of asset classes, but
yeah, we can talk about that inanother episode.
So I mean, we've talked a lotabout first-time investors and
especially young investors andthe need for instant
gratification or making a quickbuck, and leverage obviously
plays a big role of that.
There's been a lot of headlinesaround how leverage ATPs can
(15:25):
amplify returns but alsoobviously, on the downside, have
been criticized for being riskyand unsuitable for a lot of
investors.
Do you think these concerns arevalid, or is it more like a
case of investors not fullyunderstanding the risk they're
taking or not doing theirhomework appropriately?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
It's, of course, 100% valid.
These are not investment toolsfor everyone.
It's just another tool in thetool shed, basically for people
who are most likely activetraders, people who are closely
monitoring the market and peoplewho have specific convictions
(16:09):
on individual stocks, on certainETFs or on certain asset
classes.
So of course, the concerns arevalid, but these concerns,
honestly, they've been recycledand chewed up and repeated for
decades now.
So, as an issuer, we are thebiggest single stock ETP issuer
in Europe.
So many people may not know this, but we actually pioneered the
(16:34):
concept of single stockleveraged ETP.
So leveraged ETFs and ETPs havebeen around for the better part
of two decades, but those weretraditionally around the broad
indices, fixed incomecommodities like gold or silver,
but nobody had done it aroundan individual stock.
So we pioneered that conceptand initially I saw a few
(16:57):
articles where people werecommenting like why do people
need this?
Or it's know it's a uselessproduct.
But you know, fast forward afew years and our products are,
week after week, literally themost traded products on London
Stock Exchange, and we see thesame across the other exchanges
where they're listed.
And even if you look overseasinto the US, that same trend is
(17:19):
playing out right, except thatin the US you can't go as high
in terms of leverage as you canhere in Europe, and everybody,
or all of the issuers, stressthe exact same things.
These are not for everybody.
They should be monitoredclosely.
It's not, especially if youhold for longer than a day.
It's not going to exactlymultiply what the underlying has
(17:42):
done by the leverage factorbecause of something called a
daily reset and compounding anddecay.
There's a lot of terms that youhave to learn before putting
money into these productsbecause chances are, if you've
never traded them, they're goingto be a little bit different
from what you expect.
But as an issuer, I think we doa pretty good job at leverage
(18:03):
shares just because we put a lotof energy and resources behind
it.
So we do videos, we go on alltypes of media.
Now we go on podcasts hosted byIgnacio and we try to make
these products as digestible andunderstandable as possible.
So hopefully the educationimproves, because a bad investor
(18:25):
experience is in.
It's not in anybody's interest.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, I feel like there's two opposing forces at
play right now, like, on oneside, the very principle of ETPs
.
I guess it's aboutdemocratizing the investment
game, like opening the openingdoors and making it accessible
for everyone, but at the sametime, you know, especially when
it comes to more complexstrategies involving leverage
(18:51):
and so on sometimes I wondershould there be more
restrictions on which ETPsretail investors should be able
to access, or do you think thatwould go against the very
principle of an ATP?
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
(19:14):
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling?
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Um, this is a question that's not black or
white, right.
Obviously, there's a lot ofnuance here.
So ultimately especially youknow from the viewpoint of an
issuer you know that theultimate gatekeeper to the
products is.
The people that get access tothese products have been
(20:00):
properly vetted, They've taken aquiz or they've proven that
they have trading experienceover the years.
That essentially proves theyunderstand the products.
I'm not a huge fan of holdinginvestors hands and telling them
what they can and can't trade,so I think, historically, that's
been one of the mostfrustrating sort of trends as an
(20:24):
investor.
Just to give you an exampleright In the US, they finally
approved the spot Bitcoin ETFs,and that's something we had here
in Europe for a lot earlier.
I think it was back in 2019,when the first such product was
launched and when peoplecouldn't get that access to
whatever they wanted to investin, which, in that case, was
(20:46):
Bitcoin.
You're going to go to the wildwest, right, so you're going to
try to open up a wallet.
You're going to try to go onthese other exchanges that might
not necessarily be legit, soyou're still going to try to get
that.
It's not like the rules aren'tgoing to change your behavior
they're going to try to.
They're going to force you tofind an alternative way to do
what you want, and I feel thesame way with leverage.
(21:06):
So, when you think about thingslike you know trading options,
trading, futures in Europe,trading CFDs, trading on margin
in many of the instances there'sa lot of factors that make them
a lot more difficult tounderstand, especially from you
know, let's say, an individualinvestor's perspective, and in
many cases, you can even losemore than what you put in, which
(21:28):
would be a nightmare forsomebody right?
The bottom line here is thatyou know, if people can't do
what they already want to dothrough the normal ways, they're
just going to find analternative.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Okay, I have a question regarding fees.
You talked about fees beinggenerally low.
Yeah, the ETP family ofproducts is notoriously known
for having lower fees than othertypes of products in the
(22:01):
finance industry.
But I feel like this race tothe bottom is kind of squeezing
the margins for issuers and, insome instances, even is raising
concerns about sustainability.
So my question for you is isthis sustainable really?
For you is is this sustainablereally, or does this drive for
(22:29):
lower fees?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Is it really starting to compromise the quality of
the product?
So the fee war has beensomething that's been going on
for a long time, right, andthat's why in the other topic we
touched on earlier fees.
You know it's one of the thingsthat you can, that you can
adjust to basicallydifferentiate your offering.
But you know, especially ifyou're offering something that
(22:51):
has already been on the marketfor I don't know a few years,
there's a good chance thatthere's a bigger company that
can do a lower fee than thanwhat you can offer, that there's
a bigger company that can do alower fee than what you can
offer.
So at one point, fee is justone of the factors that an
investor is going to look into.
They're going to look at otherthings like trading volumes.
They're going to look at thingslike history.
They're going to look at thingslike liquidity of the product.
(23:16):
They're going to look at AUM.
So the fee is just one factor.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
At the end of the day , I guess what is crucial for
anyone thinking about this more,about the ETP family of
products?
What steps should they followin order to familiarize
(23:57):
themselves a little bit more?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I mean, there's so much information out there.
You just have to decide whatyour preferred source of
information is right.
So if you get easily bored byreading, go on YouTube.
There's so much content outthere.
Literally, you can just type ininvesting in ETFs or getting
started in investing.
It's a lot easier than whatmany people assume and you don't
(24:24):
have to be a professional inthe field to be a good investor.
So I think that's one of thefew misunderstandings, or one of
the things that peopleunderestimate is that you should
probably be a financialprofessional to understand all
of the products available in theworld, do proper analysis in
order to be successful, and it'sjust.
It's not the case.
(24:45):
So whether it's going to bethrough a YouTube short, whether
you want to sign up for the CFAprogram, like Ignacio, or
whether you want to just open up, ask ChatGPT about it.
There's so many ways that youcan get your initial sources of
information on getting educatedin ETFs.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And I was wondering yeah, has the CFA designation
helped you in your career?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
And do you think it's worth it, given the incredible
amount of work it takes to getit?
I think one of the things mostpeople respect when they meet
CFA charter holders is theirdedication, because it shows
that they had an end goal inmind and they didn't stop until
they achieved it.
So I think perseverance is oneof the first attributes that
(25:58):
people think of when they see aCFA charter holder one of the
first attributes that peoplethink of when they see a CFA
charter holder.
So, in terms of my own career,I think it's helped me a lot,
not just because here in thelocal CFA community I've
obviously made a lot of contacts, but it really broadens your
horizon, right.
So whether you're an accountant,whether you work in financial
markets, whether you work inprivate equity, there's so much
(26:19):
that you don't know which youdon't know.
I mean, the unknowns are somuch out there that when you
read about a topic you're forcedto that you wouldn't probably
read otherwise in whatever newssource you usually use to
consume your news.
Then all of a sudden, you startlearning things that you had no
idea about in the past, and Ithink for me, that's probably
(26:40):
been one of the areas where I'veseen the most value added just
because there were so manythings that I hadn't even
thought about in the past.
But the other thing is thatit's so wide and it's so
overarching in terms of all ofthe topics covered.
At some point you have tospecialize and just keep in mind
(27:01):
that you're probably not goingto need or use a huge portion of
what you studied, butnonetheless it's going to be
eye-popping in terms of all thethings that you're exposed to.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, at the end of the day,the designation gives you a very
comprehensive view of theindustry and about markets, and
I think that's the beauty andthe curse of it, right Like you
get to go in depth in so manydifferent topics.
But at the end of the day itcan also be a little bit
(27:34):
intimidating, even the sheeramount of material you have to
go through.
But, for me personally it wasdefinitely worth it, and I also
completely agree with whatyou're saying about the contacts
you're making.
There's all those localsocieties and it's just fun to
attend them and meet some peers.
(27:55):
You automatically get a littlebit of sympathy from everyone
else whenever you see they're acharter holder, because you know
what they've gone through andthey understand your pain.
So that's good.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, exactly, I mean , and there's a lot of people
that don't stop at the CFA.
You know they go for you knowthree or four other certificates
and it's.
You know, at some point I'mjust like, how do you have the
energy to do it?
It's really impressive, it'scrazy.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I think the rule should be if it doesn't fit in
your name in your first line ofyour LinkedIn profile, it means
you shouldn't do it.
It's too much when you startgetting 304 designations.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
There's a law of diminishing returns.
Right At some point it has to.
Like you know, I don't thinkyou're getting any more benefit
out of adding more titles andmore studying, yeah, f-a-k-i-a,
f-r-a-m, yeah, yeah, exactly,president of the world, and it's
like, okay, there's too much.
Now it's time to work.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
You know, now that you've been studying for 40
years, now you have to actuallywork.
So, going back to the financeindustry now, not ETP
specifically, but the sector asa whole what is a trend that
you're witnessing that you feelnot enough people are paying
attention to at the moment, thatyou feel not enough people are
paying attention to at themoment?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
So I think one of the biggest trends, probably over
the last year, year and a half,is derivatives-based ETFs and
ETPs, and what I'm talking aboutmore specifically is those with
certain options strategies likecovered calls.
(29:43):
So we've seen the proliferanceof these in the US, right, so
it's an industry that's beengrowing hand over fist and
everybody's been launching acovered call strategy, from
something that gives youexposure to the S&P 500, to
single stocks and now evencrypto, like individual crypto
assets.
That's something that's beenpicking up in Europe as well,
and it's also one of our focuspoints for this year because,
(30:07):
from my view, it's basically atthe, or it's very close to the
heart of the three biggesttrends in ETFs.
One is active investing, likewe mentioned a little bit
earlier.
The other one is single stockETPs and the third one is
derivatives based ETPs.
So I think these are strategiesthat people are going to start
(30:28):
paying more and more attentionto, especially given the strong
bull market that we've had overthe last two years.
I think income is going to be akey trend this year, and
derivatives based ETPs ingeneral.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I think it's going to be um, I think it's going to be
another year where they shineyeah, interesting, which once
again, like, makes me thinkabout, yeah, the complexity of
these and and the degree ofeducation that, uh, that
investors should, um, shouldhave, or the time they should
invest in order to reallyunderstand what they're what
(31:01):
they're trading.
I think it's very interesting.
Uh, I like the, the, thesetrends, and I think, you know,
it makes a lot of sense.
But, yeah, I think anyone thatis willing to go into this
market should, for sure, uh,make their due diligence and and
make sure they understand whatthey're putting their money in.
That's something I always liketo say.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I think what I just want to highlight one thing.
It's like one of the thingsthat people forget is, like the
ETF or ATP structure, at the endof the day, it's just a vehicle
, right?
So it's like, whether you wantto drive a car or a minivan or a
pickup truck, you know it'sjust a vehicle for you to get to
your destination.
So, like what I mentioned withthe derivatives-based products,
(31:49):
it's like you can trade themyourself.
You can get that exposurethrough a mutual fund or you can
get that through an ETF or ATP.
So the exchange-traded versionbasically just gives you a more
convenient way of you knowgetting or achieving that,
achieving your goal.
So, at the end of the day, it'sjust a vehicle that allows you
(32:10):
to get that exposure that you'relooking for.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
So maybe that ties to something else that I wanted to
ask you about, about your joband the space you operate in.
To ask you about your job andthe space you operate in, what
do you think is the biggestmisconception that people have
about your area of expertise,which are ETPs?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, I think we sort of touched on this earlier.
They basically equate the termwith passive investing.
So I don't think it does itjustice just because the year is
2025.
And at this point, an ETF cangive you as esoteric or as
straightforward exposure asyou're looking for.
So, as long as the demand isout there, I think people would
(32:55):
be surprised what can be sort ofoffered within an ETF structure
.
So, like I mentioned, I think,earlier in the pod, whether it's
private markets, whether it'scrypto, whether it's single
stocks, whether it'sderivatives-based, there is so
much out there that is availablewithin the ETF structure that I
(33:17):
think a lot of people would beconfused or a lot of people
would be surprised.
And I think one fact that mightbe interesting for people to
hear is that today, for example,on the New York Stock Exchange,
you have more exchange tradedfunds than you have stocks.
So that just shows you in howmany ways the market has been
sliced and diced and packagedinto this wrapper.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
I didn't know that.
That's a good fun fact to know.
Now, talking about things thatpeople don't know, I want to
maybe go a little bit deeper now, into you and into your career.
What is something about yourjob that would surprise most
people?
Hey there, quick ad break.
(34:02):
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling.
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I think some people would be surprised to hear that,
despite the title of director,there's a lot of legwork that I
do that might not necessarilymatch what people expect.
So, as you might know or maybeyou don't know just because
you're working in a big firm,but when you work in a smaller
company you have to wear a lotof hats, right?
(34:51):
So the title might entail thatI only deal with sort of like PR
relations and maybe a littlebit about company strategy, but
there's a lot more in between.
Sometimes I have to proofreadsocial media posts, sometimes I
have to speak with the marketingteam and tell them which
product to push for thisparticular quarter, and then
sometimes I have to speak withthe product team and be like
(35:11):
which product to push for thisparticular quarter?
And then sometimes I have tospeak with the product team and
be like, hey, instead of puttingout a product around, let's say
another, let's say AI name,let's focus on quantum computing
stocks.
So it's sort of my job to payattention to the market and try
to coordinate all of the tasksinternally.
So sometimes it might soundlike a sexy position, but I can
(35:34):
tell you that at times it's alot more boring than people
might imagine.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I like that.
I mean, I think it's cool whenyou have, like, different tasks,
because if you do exactly thesame thing day in, day out, at
the end of the day you can get abit bored.
But by touching at so manydifferent things, I guess it
makes your day super exciting.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
So yeah, and I've always been one of those people,
for better or worse, that getseasily bored.
So the fact that I have to dodifferent things is actually one
of the things that has kept meexcited in this or interested in
this role.
Prior to joining LeverageShares, I think my longest
tenure in any other company waslike two years or three years,
(36:18):
and now that I'm well over myfifth year at the company, I
think it's a good sign thathaving to do different tasks it
probably rubs off well on me,because otherwise I get bored
pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
That's just the fact Makes sense, and a lot of our
listeners will probably be earlyin their career, and a question
I like to ask our guests iswhat do you think young
professionals entering theindustry need to hear, but that
they rarely do?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So I think one of the things that you really have to
get into your head is thatyou're going to learn a lot more
from your mistakes than yoursuccesses.
So I mean, at the time it'sgoing to feel like crap.
You're going to feel.
I mean your ego is going to beshot.
You're going to feel really badabout yourself, maybe your
(37:19):
self-confidence isn't going tobe great.
But I guarantee you, by tryingdifferent things and, you know,
making sometimes even a fool ofyourself, you're probably going
to achieve a lot more thanplaying it safe and trying to
impress everybody else.
You know you have to rememberthat the brain it's almost like
a time machine for like cringememories.
And then it's you feel like agoldfish whenever you do
something right, right.
(37:40):
So everything that you do wrongyou remember for the longest
time.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
So when you make a mistake, trust me, there's a
really high chance that you'renot going to repeat it yeah, you
learn from doing, from mistakesand from not doing it again For
those same young professionals.
What is one belief about thefinance industry that you think
the general public getsgenerally wrong?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
The biggest one for me is that you have to be sort
of a math whiz to be good infinance, because I think people
automatically assume that youhave like a strong background in
mathematics or statistics orphysics to be good in finance,
which is just not the case.
You know, when people sort ofuse this broad term finance, I
(38:30):
think a lot of times peopleforget that finance can mean
anything from like a back officeaccountant, that like a very
small local shop, to aquantitative analyst, that like
a big hedge fund or aninvestment firm.
So it varies quite a lot andthere's a lot you can do with
the skill set that you have.
So don't underestimate yourselfand don't think you have to be
(38:52):
a specialist in one specificthing to be successful.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Are you a math whiz?
Definitely not.
I feel you speak very goodEnglish and you express yourself
very good, which is somethingthat not a lot of people are
able to do, especially not likenative English speakers, because
you are from Bulgaria, if I'mnot wrong, right?
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yes, that's correct.
I was born in Bulgaria and Ilived about 11 years in the US.
I was that sexy In SouthFlorida.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, yeah, because I feel one of the biggest skills
you can get nowadays working infinance is being able to present
properly and being good atstorytelling.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
I agree, I agree.
But what I say to a lot ofpeople because you know, I guess
, thanks for the compliment, bythe way, thanks for the
compliment, by the way but whatI say to a lot of people,
especially those with a specificaccent, whether it's a Spanish
one or a French one, I sayembrace it, because it makes you
that much more interesting andexotic.
(40:04):
Because I guarantee, if you'respeaking with an American accent
in Europe, it might soundinteresting, but if you're
speaking with an American accentin the US, it's not that
interesting.
So just embrace your accentthen, and yeah, that's my key
message.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I'll embrace my Spanish accent as much as I can.
Yes, you definitely should, soI know a topic you're interested
in, and we briefly touched uponalready in the podcast, is AI.
What's your take on the role ofAI in the future of investment
(40:41):
decisions and the financeindustry in general?
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I'm really bad at predicting things, so I'm not
going to make a prediction, butI'm going to say what I'm hoping
for.
So I really hope that a lot ofthe boring stuff that we
currently have to do can bereplaced by the bots or the
robots or generative AI, and bythat I mean the number crunching
, the repetitive tasks, thestuff that makes us not want to
(41:07):
get up in the morning and go towork, right, that makes us not
want to get up in the morningand go to work, right.
Once you take all of that stuffout, that's when we can actually
start thinking out of the box,because once you do repetitive
tasks for multiple hours on end,all of a sudden your brain is
fried, right.
You can't think creatively.
So my hope is that, sooner thanlater, a lot of these tasks are
(41:32):
going to be automated by AI orwhatever tools are going to be
at our disposal, and I reallyhope that we use the time that
we have at our disposal in thefuture a lot more efficiently,
because I think all of us sortof overestimate how much of it
we have, because, yeah, I thinkall of us sort of overestimate
(41:53):
how much of it we have.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, 100%.
I think we should be focusingon the most value-adding type of
activities and leave the restfor the machine especially those
that are painful to do.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Again, going back to your career, I'm curious to hear
because I mean looking at yourprofile you've been working in
very different places what wasthe most challenging decision
you faced over the years and howdid you navigate it?
Speaker 1 (42:26):
One of the things that's most hypocritical that I
hear from a lot of people is notdoing what you're preaching,
basically.
So a lot of people are like,okay, you should do this, but in
the meantime they're doing thecomplete opposite.
So when I say leaving yourcomfort zone, I say that to your
(42:47):
listeners because that's what Idid and that's when I basically
learned the most in my career,right?
So I did, I guess, a prettytraditional finance path working
in like a tech company in thefinance department and then
working for a brokerage and thenworking once again, you know,
in the financial space, at abank and at some point I got so
(43:07):
tired of it Predictability wasdriving me insane.
So tired of it.
Predictability was driving meinsane.
I felt like a robot and I hateit.
I hate it honestly.
So at that point I decided itmight entail a pay cut, it might
entail an unpredictable future,but that's the kind of thing
that excites you when you don'tknow what the day ahead is going
(43:28):
to present.
For me, that's interesting.
For a lot of people it could bestressful and at times it will
be, but for the most part, Ithink that's where you become a
lot more resilient, especiallyas a professional and maybe on
an individual level and you weretalking about leaving the
comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
I have another question about leaving.
Was there ever a moment whenyou considered leaving the
financial industry at all?
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I think I was on the verge of doing that.
I'm saying I think just becauseat this point I don't even
remember that well, but I knowthat during my first job out of
university I really didn't likethe job I was doing.
The second job I probablylearned a lot more, but once
(44:19):
again I came to sort of thatpeak where you sort of reach
your full potential at a certaincompany, in a particular
position, and then you realizeor you start to think, you know,
is this all this career entails?
Like, is this what financemeans?
Is this what people werebragging about for all these
years?
And ultimately I came to therealization that it's not the
(44:42):
field itself that was boring, itwas the actual work I was doing
that was boring for me.
Because, you know, some peopletake pride and they're really
good at doing more repetitiveand administrative and sort of
these number crunching tasks,and for me it just it didn't do
it.
I always like to be sort of,you know, having a more front
(45:03):
office role, a people likerelationship, I should say a
relationship manager kind ofrole, but one that not only has
the, let's say, the hard skillside but also the soft skill
side.
Like I said, I get bored easily, so I always like to have a mix
of things.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
And how do you come across those roles where you
were most fulfilled in, like theone you have now, as I
understand?
Like was it like something thatyou kind of stumbled upon, or
were you super proactive andtook specific steps in order to
to get there?
Speaker 1 (45:36):
if I have to be completely honest, I stumbled
upon it.
Um, it wasn't something that Iwas that I was looking for
specifically, but you know, Ijust decided to apply just
because of, first of all, it wasthe job, job requirements.
It sounded interesting to me.
It said you should be good withpeople.
It said you might have totravel.
(45:57):
It said you'll have to speakwith sophisticated institutional
investors.
I said, okay, that soundspretty interesting.
So I had a first meeting withthe COO of the company and then,
ultimately, the secondinterview was with the CEO of
the company, who was also in theUS and one of the former
(46:18):
co-founders of another ETFbusiness, and I was really
impressed by not only what theyhad done in the past, but also
the fact that they had a visionfor something that almost was
non-existent in terms of marketexposure.
Um, and they seemed like reallysmart guys, and that turned out
to be the case, and I said,okay, if I'm gonna fail, I might
(46:40):
as well fail with, you know,smarter people than myself
around me.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
And that's what I decided to do, and and that's
how I ended up here I love thatthey say that you should always
surround yourself, uh, bysmarter people than you so that
you can learn as much as humanlypossible, and I think that,
yeah, that's always a good thingto do.
So we've been reflecting a loton your career and I was
(47:07):
wondering if there's a specificfinancial lesson you wish you
had learned earlier there's aspecific financial lesson you
wish you had learned earlier.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Um, I would say, invest earlier.
I don't know how much of acliche this is, but it's
definitely relevant for me.
And it's really painful math ifyou start, you know, actually
doing the calculations.
Like you know what if Iinvested ten dollars every day
into this specific stock for acertain amount of time?
Um, because, because it's justnot that scary and, like I said,
(47:39):
you learn a lot more by doingthan than learning, so
everything just is acceleratedand happens faster.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
So if I could give myself one, or if I could turn
back time and tell myself onething, it would be invest yeah,
I mean the the power ofcompounding is absolutely
magnificent and it does make alot of difference at the end of
35, 40 years, having startedlike two, three years apart.
Um, because the last years iswhere really that compounding uh
(48:10):
contributes the the most toyour holdings.
And yeah, I fully agree withyou, the earlier you start, the
better.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
What about you?
What would you say?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
your biggest regret is I think my regret has more to
do with the type of investmentsI've made.
I think I've been toorisk-averse.
It's not necessarily that Istarted investing late, but I've
always.
I hate.
I think I hate losing moneymore than I like making money.
(48:41):
There's a mental biasexplaining that.
I don't remember what it is.
I think it's loss aversion,yeah, and because of that, you
know, I've always played it likekind of super safe, um, and in
hindsight I mean, of course youknow you can always do better,
(49:03):
you can do worse, uh.
But yeah, if I could changesomething, would it would have
been maybe taking a little bitmore risk in my early, uh,
investing years, because the theway I was investing at the
beginning was probably closer tohow someone close to retirement
was investing rather than how a20-something year old was.
(49:35):
Again, as we were saying, youlearn from doing.
You learn about yourself overthe years through mistakes and
the important thing is to getbetter 1% every day, as I like
to say.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Absolutely, absolutely Compounding.
That's the key word.
100%.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
And a couple last questions, maybe related to
family, and obviously thefinance industry is notoriously
known for having long hours andbeing relatively hard compared
to other sectors.
How have you managed to findthat work-life balance over the
years, If you found it at all?
(50:08):
I don't know.
Maybe you're spending 15 hoursin the office a day and you
haven't told me.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
No, I don't think I would be alive.
If that was the case, my wifewould have killed me.
We've all heard the horrorstories with the investment
bankers working 60, 70, 80 hoursa week, and as soon as I heard
that, I knew that kind oflifestyle would never work for
me.
And as soon as I heard that Iknew that kind of lifestyle
would never work for me.
So one of the things that Ilive by is balance.
(50:38):
So, whether it's work, whetherit's social life, whether it's
going on vacation or focusing ona hobby, I think balance is the
key.
So one of the things that Imake sure I don't do is not to
overwork, because getting burnedout and trying to recover from
that is probably going to be 10times harder than to sort of
(51:00):
keep a normal, you know, just tostick to a normal schedule and
get something done over two dayswhich you could have done, you
know, over one day if you had,you know, overdone it.
So I would say balance is thekey.
I would say I'm not the best atit, but I think I've done a
pretty good job, just because Ihaven't gotten sick of what I've
(51:20):
been doing for the last fewyears.
So I think that's a decentindicator.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
And how do you find balance?
What's your thing?
Is it like sleep, sports,friends, spending time with the
family?
What charges your batteries.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
When I was living in the US, I almost didn't watch
any American football and I waswatching European normal
football.
And then, now that I live backhere in Europe, I watch more
American football and less ofEuropean football.
So I watch the NFL, I watchsports in general, I try to go
(51:59):
to the gym from time to time andthe lion's share of my free
time is obviously dedicated tomy wife, and the rest is
probably hanging out withfriends.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Okay, octave, so I think we've covered most of the
things I wanted to ask you about.
That's been super interesting,very, very insightful,
especially for people like methat don't know as much as ETPs
as you do.
So thank you for that, thankyou for your time.
All of you, by the way, have toknow that Octay is pretty big
(52:33):
on socials.
He's very active on LinkedIn,so make sure you give him a
follow.
And, octay, thank you so muchfor coming to the Blunt Dollar,
and I wish you all the best forthis year.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Awesome.
Thanks a lot for having me on,and I'm really looking forward
to seeing how fast this podcastis going to grow.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
We'll see, take care and talk to you soon.
The Blunt Dollar is written,produced, hosted and edited by
me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound, design and
production come straight from mydesk and, occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listening, and join me in the next
(53:16):
episode of the Blunt Dollar formore raw, honest finance
conversations.
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