Loading summary
A
What's up guys? On this episode of Full Signal we have Todd Sohn. He is the chief ETF strategist at Strategus and we get into the sectors he's watching in the stock market right now. What's going on in health care, energy software, crypto, bitcoin and much more. This is a fantastic conversation that is packed with charts and data. I learned a ton and I think you're going to love it. Todd, I'm so glad you're here today. I got to ask you about the exposure to trillion dollar companies. We have Eli Lilly joining Walmart joining the club and pretty much every major fund and ETF is heavily weighted to trillion dollar companies. What is going on here?
B
So first you inspired me to update this table because I think you wrote about Walmart joining the trillion dollar league in your opening bell a few weeks ago.
A
Right, I did.
B
So thank you for that. That's the value I get from you, which is great. Secondly, okay, so this is not a bearish argument or take anything like that. This is not about participation because by most measures participation in the equity market is really strong right now. This is about over ownership of a small cohort of names and I try to tell this to our clients, to advisors and whatnot, that if you own large cap blend funds, S&P 500, large cap growth like the Russell 1000, if you own say a thematic AI ETF and then even in some other cases in the factor world, quality, momentum, some rotation type strategies, they all own a large chunk of these names. And while that has been beneficial over time, you may just want to look under the hood of your portfolio and say wow, do I have too much exposure here and should I be paying attention to the other stuff that is not heavily influential in the benchmarks. It's almost like you're having too much ice cream, right? Too much ice cream, too many cherries on top, whipped cream, all that stuff. Especially now that some of these names have corrected a little bit. I think it makes a lot of sense to look under the hood of your portfolio and understand where you have too much exposure and where you need
A
to upgrade the allocations to, well, some of these funds. We have the table here. Spy 39% Exposure to trillion dollar companies QQQ 48% IWF 56% I don't think most people realize that. I certainly didn't realize it till I looked at your charts. Honestly, is there a way to even diversify in this market? Because if all the most popular retirement account ETFs are so heavily weighted. Right. What do you do with this?
B
So there's a few routes you can go international, which apparently people are doing based on the flows. Whether that's developed international like Europe and Japan, Canada, emerging markets, that's gonna be more volatile, but that's starting to work again as well. And then you can look to lower correlated assets. So when I think about this, I think of natural resources.
A
Right.
B
You're gonna be more heavy into metals and mining, energy drilling type stuff. Some people may not love those. That's going to be a little bit more higher beta to an extent. Or you can go to manage futures strategies. Those are going to be systematic. They're going longer short currencies and commodities and they will work in certain environments. It's all about going less correlated than adding more US type equities. I think that's the way to do it. You could add tilts to certain sectors like health care and energy and materials. It's a little bit more challenging for most people without being really hands on in the markets. So that's why I think you look to that developed international natural resources and then alternatives like managed futures for to just to water down the exposure you have to these companies.
A
Something I've been writing about a lot to start the year is Latin America exposure. I talk to a lot of investors, love Latin America. I'm very bullish on Latin America. Is that something you're seeing in flows where Latam specifically is picking up?
B
I think to some extent, yes. And especially because they get the metal and mining exposure as well. Right. Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, all that stuff. And those will ebb and flow depending on certain catalysts, elections and whatnot. But I think that's part of the EM story where folks woke up this year really some extent last year and realized emerging markets are good on the valuation. Maybe they're an AI beneficiary for what that's worth. Or they're also part of this resource hoarding story. Right. Everyone wants the natural resources and all the metals and whatnot. And I think there being a benefit of that. So investors, after quite some time of being all in on tech and growth, are now starting to diversify out, which is good.
A
Okay, Todd, you had this hilarious chart. Hilarious, but also maybe troubling. The metal mania chart, which shows daily trading volume for precious metals has just gone probably more than parabolic. I don't even think parabolic describes it. What? What is this chart?
B
A crescendo?
A
Yeah.
B
The fun part about ETFs is majority of the Time, it's just into steady passive funds like we were talking about, which can have their flaws. And then every once in a while, when an event happens, an ETF focused on that, in this case silver or gold, platinum, palladium, just take off and everyone flocks to it. That's one of the beauties of ETFs. You can get access to something extremely quickly and efficiently. If there's non exposure to it, someone will create it. It'll be out here in three months. So what happened with the metals? I mean, gold's been on a tear for quite some time and then somehow it just translated over silver, whatever the reason might be, and there's just been a massive momentum play into silver. Now you wonder, okay, well, how, how overdone are we? When I start to see record volumes in silver like we have on that chart, record volume into leverage silver ETFs, when you see the whole spectrum taking in volume and flows, that tells you maybe we're getting a little overdone here. And now that's kind of corrected here. It's been violent, right? And who knows where it goes in the next six months or whatnot. But I just look at the activity here, say if you've been long, maybe have a plan to get out or. I think it's interesting, in the ETF world there are funds that do covered calls on commodities, right? There's a gold covered call fund, which is super interesting. So if you think that the juice for metals is kind of capped from here out, you can still participate, but gain income from selling calls on the ETFs that are underlying them.
A
Well, you know how many people are asking me, should I buy gold? Should I buy silver still?
B
Oh, yeah.
A
I mean, do you have a view on how much further you think these metals can go this year?
B
I personally think they're probably a little bit capped, but I've been wrong, okay? I have to admit, I thought it was done a few months ago and it just ripped higher. The trend is obviously higher, but once I start to see this volatility and the volume, this metal mania, which we took the WrestleMania logo and turned it into metal mania, that makes me a little weary that things are way overdone on the sentiment front. And there's other ways. We've had plenty of conversations, anecdotal observations, and then there's investor survey data we get too, and all of them read super bullish metals. So I don't know, I like the idea of going the covered call route just to you can stay involved get income just in case this falls off and you can still participate. You won't get the max participation when you're using covered calls, but that's the route I'm going forward. More interesting, the more timelier stuff is in the industrial metal space. The copper, aluminum, tiny. So we'll start to see if that translates over too.
A
And is there a way to get exposures through those with other products that aren't touching silver?
B
Yeah, well, funny enough, there was an industrial metals ETF that closed late last year, right before this move might take off. But there's still a few out there. Like Invesco has dbb, it's base metals. Sprott is literally the metals company in terms of those. And they have closed end funds that'll get you copper and platinum type exposures. So there are ways to get these physical exposures without using futures, which is the great part. So if you're looking to do that, I mean, we could always talk about that and whatnot. It's just a matter of what's the vehicle. Is it an etf, is it closed end fund, Is it an etn? Right. There's a silver cover called etn, which is gonna be different than etf. There's all sorts of stuff here, but they all exist.
A
It's so niche and I think it's so off people's radars mostly like finding these single commodity or a few commodities in one fund. So you, you had this other chart you published. It shows how silver ETFs have become bigger than energy ETFs. And I think what you highlighted, there's only two silver ETFs, but now they are bigger than like 30 energy ETFs.
B
This was how crazy the silver move got, right? There's been energy sector ETFs have been around for ages and yeah, there's 30 of them or so from all different issuers. IShares, VanEck name, State street, all these energy ETFs, and they've languished over the last few years because performance hasn't been that great. So you've had outflows, assets really haven't grown. And then there's these two silver ETFs, SLV and SIVR, that most people are familiar with. And this move has been so wild that between flows and price appreciation, they were larger than the entire energy sector. So that's just another breadcrumb to me that says if you've been long, consider your plan to get out or reduce exposure. It's just wild and also tells Me how low the bar is for energy as well. Maybe we'll see an energy move which kind of has happened the last few weeks.
A
Wait, talk to us about energy a bit more because this is one of the sectors that I think from a high level it seems obvious because we're short on energy for all these AI buildouts, but the stock reaction hasn't made it an obvious trade.
B
Right? So why do I like energy? Why am I more bullish on energy than maybe most others? I don't know what the street thinks, to be honest. Since ChatGPT launched three years ago, three years and a couple of months, Energy and healthcare have had the most outflow from sector ETFs. Tech's been all in most inflows of tech. That makes sense. I also couple that with energy just being in its bottom decile relative to the S&P 500 over the last three years as well. So really bad performance stay away. Massive outflows. But then if I put on my technical hat, I look at some of the charts of energy and they've been this sideways range for months. And so that to me presents an interesting risk reward. It's like an Exxon, Exxon sideways massive range. It's finally got some momentum. And when the bar is so low, based on those flows and performance, you can get real fast momentum to come in. I think that's what you're seeing with energy. And it's also this part of the movement away from some of those trillion dollar names, Energy was down to about 3% of the S and P. That means nobody really owns it, right? They don't have a lot of energy exposure, they haven't needed it. But when the top of the index goes through a speed bump, you're going to want to look to those other areas to say, hey, where can I get a little more exposure in?
A
Some of you may not have heard this, but our partners at public just launched something called generated assets. It brings AI into investing in a way I've honestly not seen before. Here's how it works. You type in an idea like AI powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow, or something like defense tech companies growing revenue over 25% year over year. Publix AI then dispatches a swarm of agents that can scan every single stock, evaluate them and instantly build a custom index around your thesis. What really stands out is how clearly it explains why each stock is included. And before you invest, you can even backtest your idea against the S&P 500. So you're making decisions with Real context and not just guessing. Beyond generated assets, Public lets you invest in stocks, bonds, options, crypto all in one place. They'll even give you an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your investments over from another platform. If you want to build a portfolio that actually reflects your thesis, visit public.com openingbell that's public.com openingbell now let's get back to the conversation. A few months ago you came on the show and one of your favorite sectors was healthcare because you thought it looked really beaten down and poised for rebound. Is that still something you're monitoring? Or maybe has energy taken over that favorite slot?
B
Energy's the new favorite. Healthcare's had a very good run in some cases. And what's interesting is you are seeing money try to kind of chase back into both of them, to be honest, in the, in the near term. But I still like the idea of healthcare. There are parts of it that are sloppy, like managed care that's still under fire for whatever the reasons are. But Big Pharma has worked out really well and biotech to some extent. So I would still put energy and healthcare as two of the favors there, right? Yes, it's been a little bit of a sugar rush, but just think about how bad they've been for the last three to five years. That's a long way to go before normalization.
A
When I look at the news or speak with investors, no one really talks about sector flows in ETFs. You're pretty much the only guy I talk to who pays attention to this stuff. What is the data telling you as far as, okay, here are the opportunities that maybe people aren't paying attention to, or maybe they are paying attention to, but for the wrong reasons.
B
So the other, the other interesting area.
A
Right.
B
So healthcare and energy, they have some characteristics in them that are similar, called low volatility. Right. So that's a factor. You have size, quality, momentum, profitability. Low volume is another one. And there's a small cohort of low volume ETFs out there and since 2019 they've had pretty substantial outflows too. Part of that argument is because there are other solutions in the ETF world that have taken their share and part of it's just been the performance hasn't been there. But in this environment where volatility seems to be picking up, especially from the software space and big tech, I think it's a very low bar for low volatility strategies to work again. So you're going to get pharma some energy because Energy is actually transformed to a more lower beta sector. Consumer staples, which have been terrible, but are seeing a little bit of a momentum play here. And then insurance, which I guess is also getting caught up in some of the AI stuff too. But I like that idea that if you're worried about the market and a midterm election year, which is a whole other animal, low volume strategies could make a little bit of a comeback here. And I wonder if you'll start to see money come back into those strategies.
A
Would it only be the most sophisticated investors that can seek out low volume strategies? Because I don't think any retail investors would know to look for this.
B
So true. The other route is to use a model portfolio. So there are these big asset managers who have ETF models and they'll say, based on our research, based on our thoughts, we're going to shift out of momentum and into low volatility. And so they'll automatically put the people who are following their models into it. It's an outsourced investment team. But for retail, yeah, that's going to be a little bit trickier. They may not be as in the weeds and maybe they'll go to the options market instead and buy puts for whatever reason. But so I think for the low volume to return, you have to see the models really embrace them again.
A
Wow. Then it becomes more of an algorithmic trend. Is that right?
B
Yeah. So you'll get flows. And I'm convinced as much as there are other products like Structured outcome and buffer ETFs, which could steal their thunder, I'm convinced if market volatility really picks up, algorithms will say, if market is declining, if volatility is higher, buy consumer staples. And that as much as those businesses are challenged, like, I don't drink much anymore, I don't eat cereal, what kind of bread you buy, no one's getting white bread as much as it tastes good. The algorithms will buy those stocks because they know they are traditionally historically very defensive and work in hard environments.
A
How much do you think these algorithms warp the market? Like maybe value's not going to where it should be going.
B
I don't have any data on it, but I got to imagine it's hefty, right? We're in a computer driven world now, AI driven world. And so the definition of what's value could be massive. And you see that in value funds too, right? There's probably a couple hundred different value ETFs out there and they go from the blandest of the bland, the buy the book stuff, to Much more complicated, like our friend Kai Wu with intangible value. So that definition is definitely changing. I don't know, I think it'll continue to evolve, but I imagine the algorithms are probably playing with a round of that too.
A
Yeah, I think it distorts so much of what we think is really hot versus not hot. Because especially from the retail side, you have no visibility into most of this stuff unless you're extremely sophisticated. But generally you have to go by momentum and that's what it is. Okay, so let me ask you about bitcoin and crypto. We've seen huge outflows in crypto to start the year. Bitcoin's been down, I think it's down almost 50% from its all time highs. What are you seeing in the data as far as the flows for ETFs?
B
So there's definitely been some cooling on the flows for the last, what, two years since the Bitcoin ETFs launch. And then Ethereum, it was pretty substantial demand, really impressive. So there's two interesting angles. Number one is you have massive wealth companies opening up access on their platforms to crypto ETFs, Vanguard bank of America, I think Morgan Stanley maybe too. So they're saying, all right, you can solicit crypto ETFs for your clients. You can buy a small allocation. I wonder maybe if that would put a little floor on crypto. That has not been the case. Now the other angle is I have felt that crypto flew a little too close to the sun. Right. We went from having spot bitcoin and spot Ethereum to really exotic exposures. And maybe I'm naive because I don't understand what chainlink is and avalanche, all that stuff. I'm sure it's world changing. This is me being stupid. But the amount of product that was getting shoved into the system to me reflected a little bit of exuberance in the near term. And that has coincided with this decline. We had 2x Dogecoin coming out. Nobody needs that. It's fun. Speculate. That's more gambling to me. And now it's translating to outflows. People are cooling on Bitcoin. I do wonder if there at some point when things can finally settle down, maybe there's a short metals long crypto trade brewing somewhere. We'll see. But if you're just talking about mean reversion of things that have been oversold versus super overbought, those are their prime candidates. But I think if you want to stay in the long run, you can still buy and hold crypto to some extent, but keep the allocation small because we don't know, we don't know what the future is.
A
I mean, it's been a crazy even just two months into the year, a few weeks. And one thing that I'm watching specifically is bitcoin hovering below 70,000. And that I don't know exactly. But the ETF demand for Ibit and other related products, that must have some role in that. I mean, I don't know. Do you have any knowledge or insight into how much that correlates?
B
I don't, honestly. It's not to disappoint everybody here. So I forget whatever the price was, I'm sure you're floating around there. When IBIT launched and all the other nine other Bitcoin ETFs launched, I'm sure some folks might say, hey, I'm below zero now, I got to sell. Right? Maybe they're just worried about losses.
A
That's possible.
B
The other part of it is just the temperature on crypto is getting cool, right? Cool is in bearish between the outflows. I'm not sure what's going on in the administration, but they're clearly trying to get stuff together. And I think people just get very nervous when all that happens. And it's almost like a sell the news type of event. Now the good news is there are options to keep your crypto exposure in other forms. There are covered call crypto ETFs like there are for gold. So you could say, okay, I'm going to stay long bitcoin, but I want to generate income just in case it's still on the decline. And that's not going to guarantee you downside protection, but you'll get a check at least distribution. Or there are buffered bitcoin products which have worked pretty swell in this decline. And what those do, they'll protect you from 80% of the downward move all the way up to 100% of the downward move. The hard part is knowing when to implement it, right, because you have to buy them very specifically, the way they're structured on a day and a date. But if you own that, you're sitting pretty during this whole correction, this drawdown, you're protected. So that aside from all the funky exposures that are out there, the 2x stuff and the weird coins that I don't understand, or technology I don't understand, the ETF world is building an entire ecosystem around that core spot exposure, which I think is great, just like they've done for Stocks?
A
Yeah, it's unbelievable to think about. Just a couple years ago you had to have, let's say, coinbase to buy into Bitcoin. And now anybody, especially people who aren't in crypto, can buy into it. And I know plenty of older Americans who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s. They only buy through the ETFs. And that's been an interesting trend to observe. What's the, what's the leverage angle to all of this? You do a lot of work on leverage. You had a bunch of charts on it recently.
B
So, okay, so levered assets, levered and inverse ETFs are about 150, $160 billion of AUM, like 1 or 2% of the ETF world. But they do a lot of heavy lifting because people love to trade them.
A
Right.
B
You can express high conviction views in that. The ratio I track of levered to inverse ETF assets over the last week has dipped from about 13 to 1 to 10 to 1. Back in January 2022, it was 6 and a half to 1. Went all the way down to 101 to 1 in October 2022. I don't know what the right number is on this ratio. It's part bull market effect, part very much people getting a little too exuberant. Now when you look at flows to those products, there are outflows because investors are doing the right thing by taking profits. So the levered product rises, people sell out of it. That's the good part. The other portion of this though is the massive product proliferation of single stock levered funds. You take a stock like Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, you put a swap on it, that's 2x exposure and you can trade that all day. There's 250 or so of those now from all sorts of different issuers. The real tricky thing though is since those have launched about three years ago, you're seeing smaller and smaller companies get leverage put on them.
A
Right.
B
So we started with the heavyweights. Nvidia, Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, Coinbase was in there too. And then more recently, you're Getting companies with sub 10, sub $5 billion market caps that are super volatile and it's not like they have assets in them. So it's not a systemic thing. But if you're just a retail person playing around, those are going to be so volatile that you just have to be really tricky. I mean, careful. Very tricky. And we see prospectus has come out for new 2x leveraged single stock funds and I don't even know what half the tickers are because they're random retail favorites. Which I guess is a thing
A
that's mind blowing because this is stuff that also doesn't ordinarily make the news. But you have to be really quite degenerate to be buying in or finding them.
B
From my perspective, we'll get clients who say hey, does this name have a levered product on it? Because if they own it, they want to know if there's any sort of impact on the way it trades throughout the day, especially into the end of the day when things rebalance. They say, yeah, you know, it's only has the million in assets, but you may just want to keep it on your radar in case it gets to 100 million or 500 million. Most of the single set leverage stock ETFs have less than 25 million in it. They're more lotto ticket plays I think, to be honest. But if there's a name that's only 1 billion in market cap and all of a sudden turns into the next Robinhood, whatever it might be, goes massively higher, then that lever product is going to see a lot of action.
A
Is there a way for a single stock levered product that just, you know, 10 or 20 X's? Is there a risk to the broader market in that or would it stay pretty contained?
B
It would impact the underlying name, but the broader market, I don't believe so. They wouldn't be big enough yet. It's more like the, the triple Qs and the S and P type stuff that when they get big enough can, you can start to see little, you know. Yeah, and I, I mean I would guess it gets caught up too. Like if you have an unwind in large cap growth, eventually it does leak to the lever space, I would think. So it's kind of a, a rolling block of events there.
A
Well, this goes right in line with the proliferation of prediction markets. Right. Those have become the biggest thing that, you know, they're in every commercial these days, all the ads they sponsor everything and they're getting billions of inflows. And these single name leverage products is essentially an expression of whatever view gambling.
B
They're cousins, I guess to some extent. Right. I mean the prediction markets, I don't mess around with those. They're good data points to understand what the market is for a certain event that may not list on an actual. Like it's not a stock or an asset, so we get use out of that. But the leverage single stocks, especially the ones that are really tiny market caps and super volatile, it's basically the Same thing. So caution, if you're going to play around there, that's not for serious types of money. I would say long term money, you
A
have to be pretty degenerate for the
B
degens or if you feel super, super, super strongly about a stock doing something.
A
This is true. Okay, you have this chart that shows and this is what we've been talking about leverage shares too long on blsh, gemi, the Quantum names. So you called this the straight to zero collection of charts. Tell us about what's going on here.
B
So Quantum was all the rage for a while for being the next thing to AI. And those have unwound pretty seriously. So I think the context with metals were unwinding which we've seen. And now you're also seeing a lot of these levered products with maybe they're flawed underlying companies really correct too. And these products, you inherently have a disadvantage because there's decay involved. Right. The longer they're trading and if the name doesn't rise, the more likely it's to decline. And it's the same thing that happened with some of these exchanges too bullish. Gemini, I think ETOR like some of these more crypto focused exchanges too. They're going along for the ride down. So humorously, I mean not anything towards the people who work there, but the 2x versions of these are all going to zero. They've gone, they're gone down like 80%, 90%.
A
It's unbelievable.
B
Just to show you how dangerous those stocks, those products can be real quick,
A
we'll get right back to the interview. Just wanted to pop in and say if you like this content, I read a newsletter every single morning called Opening Bell Daily. I cover macro, the stock market, asset prices, why things are going up, why they're going down. And if you want to get that for free, you can sign up at the link in the description. Let's get back to the interview. What do you make of the recent sell offs? We've seen that people are afraid of AI. So software, then financial sell off, then we saw a trucking and freight sell off. How do you wrap your head around that? And also how, how much of a knee jerk overreaction do you make of it?
B
So I know that I don't know, I don't know where this AI stuff leads to without being a scientist professional. The software stuff made this whole complex super oversold. If you're just trying to trade this thing, it would make sense to look to a bounce. In our experience, whenever a group goes through a big unwind like that it can take a while for it to recover. It could be months, it could be years for these things to really recover and regain the trust of the Street. And I think especially in this AI world, where the fluidity of the news and the developments is super fast, I think it'd be really hard to invest back in these names. Maybe it's an overreaction for some of the bigger ones, but I would just look at it as, yeah, they got oversold, they would bounce. Same thing with trucking and some of the financial service names. Is it an overreaction? The market will ultimately decide. But I just know, even if you go back and look at history in the tech bubble or financial Crisis stuff or 2011, it can take a long time for things that get unwound like this to regain the trust of investors. And they could just be dead money for now, for a little bit. And the market will move on. It seems to be moving on to industrials and natural resources and all that other stuff that we haven't really had to think about in a long time.
A
If you had to guess where AI could hit next as far as sectors or topics, where would you go?
B
So let's see, we've already had software, we've had trucking, we've hit data providers, I guess to some extent.
A
Legal names as well.
B
Legal employment. Not us tell you that much. People like humans.
A
Well, but what is. I mean, these days we don't know really what. Insulated. Yeah.
B
What's true or not. Gosh, I'd have to give that some more thought. I mean, we're in healthcare. Maybe you still need a doctor, but is there something in healthcare that AI could technically replace? I'm not sure. If I thought more about it, that would be my guess.
A
Yeah. I didn't mean to spring something on you. I love questions like that. Someone told me insurance. Yeah, the insurance.
B
Why can't AI just do all the pricing of the insurance for you?
A
I don't know. Insurance seems like a racket anyway.
B
Yeah. And deal with the screaming customer at the end of the line. Healthcare might be interesting, but there's always gonna be a need for doctors and nurses and surgeons. So maybe it's more complementary than destroying some of those businesses.
A
Okay, Todd, you have a few funds at your firm that you guys manage at Strategus. Can you walk us through maybe these ETFs?
B
Yeah, thank you for asking. So this pairs off with the AI discussion, Right? And what we started with at the top of the show, where there's this over ownership of some names. So at Strategus we run three ETFs. Our flagship ETF is the Strategus Thematic Opportunities ETF. It's S A M T Strategus Asset Macro Thematic. And what that does is take Strategus research. We've been around for 20 years. We're celebrating our 20th anniversary this year and boils down to one ETF. How does this relate to AI and over ownership? It is what we would describe as thematic diversification. So we take all these thematic baskets we have that we feel strongest about, put them into one etf. So single theme funds, they have risk. A single theme AI fund is at risk of AI disappointing. Or pick a catalyst. You have to find the right theme at the right time with the right stocks. So we pick three to five themes from our view and they're in one etf. So for example, we do have AI, but we're looking for the next layer of beneficiaries from it. Maybe it was insurance, Insurance name that won't get hit. We have DE globalization, we have power generation and then we have cash flow Aristocrats because we're still in a little bit of a challenging environment. The idea is if one theme falls off, three or four other themes will keep it afloat. So it's diversified thematic diversification. Especially in a world where the AI stuff is getting hit. That is managed by my buddy Ryan Grabinski who you know, worked with him for 13 years. He's got 450 million assets. So we're really proud of that. We also have a policy opportunities fund which think of lobbying as it measures lobbying intensity in a geopolitical news driven world. This is politically agnostic. Takes the companies that lobby the most to the US government and that's that. It's going to be very overweight. Industrials and healthcare very different than large cap growth also, which is interesting. And people don't have lobbying in their portfolio. They have size, they have quality momentum, they don't have lobbying. And then the third fund is a, that's sagp. And then SAMM is our momentum ETF that takes technical momentum. And the difference between this and moment and traditional momentum funds is that we can get more defensive in it.
A
Right.
B
So you think about momentum, you're at risk of rebalancing when does it rebalance? And you might ride it up and all the way back down. With SAMM you can get much more defensive in the way things if the market starts to turn. So we have different inputs. Myself and my teammate Chris Verone help run that one. And so if we have all these little inputs to trend momentum, when things deteriorate, we'll get more defensive. We go to cash. So we think it's a differentiated suite. It's a small suite, but we're working very hard to get it more well known. So I appreciate you asking.
A
The lobbying one is very interesting. I didn't know you guys were working on that.
B
SAGP, it's four years old, from our team in D.C. run by Dan Clifton. He is an amazing analyst. And it takes international companies, too. So if there's a company in Europe who's lobbying the US Government and it fits into this intensity formula that they have, it will be in that fund. So think of a European defense company, European industrial company. And so we look at it as. It's a different way to play a factor. And it works. And it works when tech. If tech takes the time off because it doesn't have as much tech exposure, it'll work, right? Ideally.
A
Wow, that's. That's fantastic. Todd, I really appreciate you coming on the show for the second time, and we'll do it again soon.
B
My honor, I appreciate you.
In this episode, Phil Rosen sits down with Todd Sohn, Chief ETF Strategist at Strategus, for a data-packed discussion on stock market sector rotations, ETF flows, and overlooked investment opportunities. They dissect the risks of overexposure to trillion-dollar tech stocks, analyze recent “metal mania,” and highlight contrarian plays in energy, healthcare, and industrial metals. Sohn also shares insights into the latest developments in leveraged ETFs, crypto flows, and tactical portfolio strategies for today's complex market landscape.
Record Moves in Silver ETFs:
Covered Call Strategies in Metals:
Low Volatility Play:
Algorithmic Market Distortion:
Cooling Flows Despite Mainstreaming:
Risk-Reduction Strategies:
Growth and Risks:
Prediction Markets and Speculation:
Sector Sell-Offs & Recovery Prospects:
Next AI Impact Sectors?
On Overexposure (01:10):
On Silver Mania (08:45):
On Leveraged Stocks as “Lotto Tickets” (23:59):
On Degenerate Trading (26:08):
| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|-------------| | Concentration in Trillion-Dollar Companies | 00:00–02:32 | | Diversification & Alternative Assets | 02:32–03:39 | | LatAm & Emerging Markets Flows | 03:39–04:39 | | Precious Metal Mania & ETF Flows | 04:39–09:31 | | Energy and Healthcare Opportunities | 09:31–13:05 | | ETF Sector Flows & Low Volatility Strategies | 13:05–16:56 | | Algorithms and Market Distortion | 16:08–17:29 | | Crypto ETF Flows & Derivatives | 17:29–21:22 | | Leveraged/Inverse & Single-Stock ETFs | 21:22–27:25 | | Sector Sell Offs & AI Overreactions | 27:30–30:55 | | AI Impact on Future Sectors | 29:48–30:55 | | Strategus ETF Offerings (SAMT, SAGP, SAMM) | 31:05–33:48 |
This episode delivers an insider’s look at how ETF flows, sector rotation, and tactical portfolio decisions are shaping the post-mania landscape—for both professionals and everyday investors. Todd Sohn deconstructs mainstream market narratives and highlights overlooked areas like industrials, natural resources, and thematic diversification, while providing concrete tips to avoid the most dangerous traps (like speculative single-stock levered ETFs). His parting advice? Don’t sleepwalk through your allocations—the benchmarks of the past decade aren’t guaranteed to outperform in what’s next.