Todd Rosenbluth, VettaFi

Yeah. And I saw that. Congratulations. I'm sure that opens you guys up to do bigger and better things, even though you guys already have a great business over there. And we'll talk about some of the products offerings that you have over there. But before we get into the nitty gritty, I always like to ask, when you're not working, what kind of hobbies do you have? What do you do

For fun when you're not at your desk? Yeah, I'm a big sports fan. I'm a University of Michigan graduate. Go Blue, they just won the Football National Championship. But I'm big into other sports as well. I play sports and coach my son's Little League team. And we are a sports enthusiastic family based here in New York. So lots of things related to that. And I have a four-year-old dog named Coco that is a good chunk of my exercise with her. And she might run into the room at some point for the listeners to get to hear who she is. So try to stay rounded outside of work and balance work and

Life. And very much a big believer in that. Yeah, no, that's great. And congratulations on the win. And I was actually rooting for Michigan. So we don't have any good team. I'm in Pittsburgh. We don't have any good college football teams. Pitt hasn't been relevant for a very long time. So I got to choose to root for others. But congratulations on that. And again, before we get into it, I have to ask, personally, how relieved are you that the spot Bitcoin race is now over? I know you were, as well as others, are kind of front and center on breaking all that news. It kind of felt like an NFL trade deadline. So are you happy that you've slowed down from that a little

Bit? I am. I'm happy that we're able to talk about things beyond when and whether or not it will be approved and then what will happen when it gets approved. And I know we're going to talk about the exchange conference. But for the last few months, when the tea leaves were lined up, that this felt like it was going to happen. I kept pointing to, we expected this by February. We'd have multiple products that were trading by February. We were, I guess, slightly less realistic that all of these products would come out days after, actually the day after the SEC approved it. And it's great. It's great for the industry. It's a sign that the ETFs remain a go-to vehicle to get exposure. And we're seeing great trading and great flows. But there are 3,000 other

Yeah. No, I was following everything on Twitter and it just seemed like it was a rollercoaster ride. So if I were in your shoes, I'd probably be relieved that it's over and stop having to write about it all day, every day or tweet about it all day, every day. But anyways, let's pivot over to Vetify. Can you talk about Vetify's business specifically around how they can help and how they assist ETF issuers and the types of products and services they have?

Yeah. So we like to refer to ourselves as an ETF services company. So our goal is to educate the financial advisors as part of a community and our efforts to do so include webcasts that I help to moderate some of. We do a handful of webcasts each week. So in the case of helping an asset manager, it's helping them to educate advisors, bring advisors to come hear their story. And we help to moderate the conversation and discussion and bring an audience, but bring in a educated and engaged audience for folks to listen to. We also have lots of content that's educational on our website at ETF Trends and ETF Database. And we have some partnerships where we help educate about the lineup products from an objective, independent perspective, but we're writing about individual

So let's talk about exchange then. It's coming here in a few short weeks. And I want to say, quite honestly, it's the best conference of the year. I was there last year and you guys did an exceptional job really bringing everybody together. It's extremely well run. So congratulations on that. But what was the original idea around exchange and how do you go kind of fulfilling the mission of what exchange is trying to accomplish? Yeah. So we're again, going back to what

Vetify's overall goal is, is to transform financial services into a community. One of the best ways of doing that is to bring people together all in one place and about 2000 of them we expect for this exchange conference and let them share ideas to, so they'll, they will at this upcoming conference, get to hear from industry experts from a macro perspective from a, what's going on in the markets perspective. We are in an election year and what's happening, what, what the outlook is for the election, both at the national level and, and, and going further down. But we've also brought in, we've added more to the, to the conference to, to meet advisors objectives with some best practices. We bring in Carson coaching, which is going to have three hours of training for financial advisors. We've got up to

Many of our listeners are going to do so as well. So just staying on that point in terms of trend, what do you think is kind of the next big thing coming to the ETF marketplace in 2024? Are we going to continue to see, or do you believe we'll continue to see this trend towards active or SMA conversions into ETF? What is on your radar for the next kind of advance of the ETF industry?

So yes, I do expect that we're going to see continued growth of actively managed ETFs. It was a great year for actively managed ETFs in terms of flows. In 2023, I think it was roughly a quarter of the overall money that came in. It certainly was from a product development standpoint, I think, depending upon how you classify an ETF, more than half, in fact, I think close to three quarters of the new ETFs that came to market are actively managed. And there's some caveats there, these buffer oriented ETFs that are defined outcome that keep coming out on a monthly basis or variations of those, those are actively managed because of the use of options. But we're really excited what we're seeing. Morgan Stanley is going to be expanding their lineup. This year, we've seen success out of

Great. And so back to exchange, I believe you said there's going to be about 2000 people there. It was definitely busy and everybody who was in the industry and around the industry and advisors were there. If you're an advisor attending exchange, what do you think they should be doing to make the most and best use of their time while they're there? Yeah. Well, first of all, if you're an advisor

That is registered, if you're not, if you're an advisor that's not yet registered for exchange, we very much encourage you to do so. Obviously that's, that's part of what it is, but it's actually quite affordable for advisors. They are, the goal for us is to educate them and we've got partners to help support the effort. Our agenda is up on our website. Of course, take a look at it and see what sessions that you find interesting. We're going to be running a couple, two tracks, part of the time. Sometimes it's going to be just one main stage speaker. In some cases, it's going to be two tracks. One of those is going to be more advisor focused and best practices oriented. Whereas the other stage is going to have more industry expertise to help folks think more

Yeah, no, that's definitely the case. Almost everybody who's in the industry is sending somebody to be down there. And so you mentioned a couple of the community service events. I think those are really great. As far as the sessions go, what sessions are you most excited about to be offering this year? Anything on the agenda that is going to be a must watch or must attend?

So at the risk of giving a plug for my own session, I'm excited that on Sunday, again, an hour and a half to two hours before the Super Bowl will be taking place. So people should still have time and a mindset for it. We're doing an ETF study hall. It's actually a four hour event. The first two hours is for ethics training. But I'm excited for folks that are wanting to get up to speed. I've got Elizabeth Kashner of Factset and Eric Balchunas of Bloomberg and Nate Geraci of the ETF store joining me to do some due diligence tips. We're going to have some information about how to build portfolios using ETFs. We're going to have some trading expertise. And then I'm running a game show that's going to take

So, we said there's going to be about 2000 people here. Did you ever, do you ever think about the people or the hotel guests that are just staying there on vacation? And then you've got about 75 Cabanas at the pool. What do you think there is going on in their heads when they're actually, trying to get some sun and there's a bunch of suits out there and their Cabanas passing out pamphlets?

I think they probably feel bad for us, those people that are in traditional suits and not bathing suits by the pool that are missing out on the enjoyment. I know the conferences in Miami, Florida, I try every day to take at least a five or 10 minute pause outside and just breathe the sunshine and the fresh air and remind myself where I am. But yes, we stick out notably at the conference. And because we take out a good, it's a huge conference, a huge hotel, the Fountain Blue, but you could, the actual area is going to be blocked off. So you can't walk through because there's sessions that are going on. So hotel guests have to walk around part of where we are. I'm sure they love that, the extra steps that they get in while they see us there.

Monday, Monday afternoon in Miami. So, um, just a couple more questions about the event itself. It is, as you mentioned, a monstrous event. There are a lot of people there, um, about how long do you need to be planning for this event in order to make it go off? Like a hit, like, are we, are you already working on exchange 2025? Is the team already thinking about that? No, I think no, not yet.

But so what, what, what, what happened last year, it's easier to go from what will work. We did the event in February, 2023. I think we, we, as a team decompressed, uh, we got some feedback from it, from our partners who were, who were there as to what they liked and didn't like what they wanted to see again and what they didn't. And we were aimed to be responsive. We got together a team of advisors, uh, that were willing to talk to us about what they thought worked and what they'd like to see done differently. They formed, uh, or many of them formed an advisor council that we had for exchange. Uh, and you can go onto our website at exchange ETF.com to see who those folks are. I am confident I'm

And there will be one in 2025. So we, while we're still in the conference, if you're thinking about attending, you, you haven't bought tickets yet. It really is. It really is a great conference. Where can people go to learn more about the conference, see the agenda, see the speakers, buy tickets and do everything that they need to do.

So all of that is at a website that's exchange ETF.com. So E X C H A N G E ETF.com. Uh, you can register, you can certainly see the agenda. I'm looking right now through the wall of speakers, and I'm even more impressed because we've added people's pictures and names that I didn't realize were confirmed. Um, as someone whose last name is Rosenbluth, uh, I'm towards the bottom of the list alphabetically. So I have to scroll quite a bit to be able to see all of the great folks that are here. Uh, and I'm excited with, uh, that it's a diverse lineup of speakers.

That's great. So before I let you go, just a couple more, ETF related questions. And, and you, you had mentioned, trying to bring this community together and, and there seems to be, at least from my perspective, a pretty big sense of community around the ETF industry. everybody seems to be really wonderful people. Um, and they facilitate a lot of collaboration with one another. What do you think it is about the ETF community in general that kind of fosters this level of collaboration? And it seems to be, uh, people really want to help each other and are able to offer each other advice or recommendations. Uh, what, what is it about this community you think that facilitates that?

Yeah. So first of all, let me wholeheartedly echo, uh, the sentiment that Sarah, I'm a, I'm a recovering stock analyst. Uh, back in the day I covered tech and telecom stocks, uh, for 15 years, I would barely say hello. And more importantly, people would barely say hello to me. There were other analysts covering, uh, AT&T and Cisco, uh, and other re and Verizon. Uh, it just was not a community. You just didn't talk to people. You didn't show up early before an event and expect to get much out of that because everything seemed to be so proprietary. So it was enlightening to me when I came over, uh, over 10 years ago to the ETF space and realized this was collaborative that the pie, uh, grows when everybody is, so not everybody has to support one another,

You got me at a good spot. Uh, last question before I let you go. Yeah, no, great. it's, it's true, right? You, I went to, um, when I went to the exchange conference last year, right. The, the, the charity aspect. And I think one day you guys are, uh, there's like a beach cleanup, right. And people go and they want to socialize and they're, and they're super friendly and they're, they're not there to, um, kind of posture. They're, they're really there because they want to make a difference and, and they've made friends with people and, um, and it is, it is a really nice, uh, community. And so I think events like this really help push that forward. Um, but before, before I let you go, you have seen, you've been in the industry for a very long time. Uh, you're in a

I guess I have two answers. One, uh, that is, that is hopefully doesn't sound self-serving, but vetify. That's what our goal is to do. Our audience is primarily registered investment advisors. So we're more than happy to, to have listeners that are at a wire house brokerage firm, but the reality is they've got home office, uh, access, and they also have, uh, models that they're often tapping into as opposed to building it themselves. So I very much encourage, uh, asset managers that have launched or planning on launching a product to come talk to us again, see if there's something we can do to help you get the word out, uh, from our content, from, uh, webcasts that we do from virtual events, from the data that we have. Now, obviously this is a

I wish you guys all the best of luck with exchange. I know you don't need it. You guys have done a great job in the past. I know you're going to do a great job this year. I'm excited to be there before I let you go though. Where can people learn more about vetify and also follow your insights and get the information that you're putting out there on a, uh, a daily basis.

So I publish research on ETF trends.com. Uh, we at vetify have a website, uh, V E T T A F I.com. Uh, again, the exchange ETF conference, uh, his website is exchange ETF. Um, and I'm on LinkedIn more than I am on whatever we're calling Twitter these days, but I'm there. Uh, and if you want to reach out to me or see the content that we're putting out there, um, please, please engage us. We're more than happy

To have the conversation. Well, again, Todd, thank you so much for your time. I'll see you in Miami in a few weeks. I can't wait. I look forward to shaking your hands in person.