Good morning and happy Wednesday.
Thank you for smoking.
That’s a reference to the 2005 film, based on the 1994 novel by Christopher Buckley. But it’s also a nod to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who earlier this year announced that the company would allow clients to hold Bitcoin. “I don’t think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke,” he said during the firm’s investor day presentation, explaining the pivot on an asset he had long criticized. Fast-forward to November, and it looks like the company and/or its big clients have a lot of money in Bitcoin ETFs. According to JPMorgan’s institutional investment manager report published Friday by the SEC, the firm held BlackRock’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (and options on it), Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin ETF, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF, the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, the Proshares Bitcoin ETF and several Ethereum ETFs as of Sept. 30. The IBIT holdings, up 64% from the prior quarter, were worth about $343 million, according to Coinspeaker.
And, supporting Dimon’s quote about smoking, the bank’s filing also showed hundreds of millions in Altria common stock.
Tom Lee Lines Up More Granny Shots ETFs After Netting $3B AUM
Behold the granny shot: an underhanded technique that can help basketball players improve their free-throw percentages, while also managing to look like absolute dorks.
Generally, NBA players refuse to employ the granny shot, no matter how bad their percentages may be. Of course, asset managers worry about image differently. Fundstrat CIO and lead portfolio manager Tom Lee embraces the idea of the granny shot, so much so that his line of ETFs bears the name. This week, the company announced that two new exchange-traded funds would soon appear on NYSE Arca: the Fundstrat Granny Shots US Small- & Mid-Cap ETF (GRNJ) and Granny Shots US Large Cap & Income ETF (GRNI). Those add to the firm’s single ETF, the Fundstrat Granny Shots US Large Cap ETF (GRNY), which launched about a year ago. Given the success of the first Granny Shots ETF and the characteristics of the forthcoming strategies, the firm may see significant assets roll in, said Dave Nadig, president and director of research at ETF.com.
It’s “hard to bet against Tom Lee, and he’s clearly identified two different aspects that people want right now: getting away from megacaps and generating income.”
Maybe There’s Something to It
So far this year, GRNY has returned about 30%, nearly double that of the S&P 500. The fund has clearly caught on with investors, having reached $3 billion in assets under management. The “granny shot” investment philosophy is using research to pick stocks fitting at least two of seven themes that the company has identified as market drivers (those includes millennials, AI, cybersecurity and others) and weighting them equally in the portfolio, ensuring it isn’t overly concentrated on a single one. Currently, GRNY includes 39 names but can have more or fewer. Communication is part of the firm’s strategy, and it has produced weekly commentaries and videos for investors.
A look at the two new ETFs:
- GRNJ will use five to 10 themes to select a range of 20 to 100 positions including US stocks in the bottom 15% by market capitalization, or about $25 billion or less, according to the prospectus.
- GRNI applies the same ranges of themes and positions, but for companies in the top 85% of market capitalization, with the intention of distributing income monthly.
- As of Tuesday, the listings were pending, and the ETFs were not traded on the exchange.
What’s Cool Anyway? In a video introducing the Granny Shots ETF on the firm’s site, Lee acknowledged the awkward nature of the throw. “The underhanded free throw is mechanically a better way to shoot a free throw, and it has a higher percentage, but it doesn’t look sexy,” he said.
Is Your Fixed Income Allocation Tantamount To Videocassette?
Investing in individual bonds is a unique animal. Unlike shares of stock, individual bonds issued by a company aren’t necessarily equal, with different maturity dates and yields – not to mention the chunky spreads one can see in OTC markets.
According to Capital Group’s Asad Jamil, trading individual bonds is a bit like watching a videocassette.
ETFs could be considered a technological advancement on par with streaming technology. They offer investors practical benefits just as streaming platforms give viewers more options for a better experience. In the land of bonds, fixed income ETFs offer investors real-time pricing, tradability and the flexibility to react quickly when rates or risk shift.
Layer in active oversight by Capital Group, and what was once a rudimentary tool becomes a precision instrument.
Learn how bond ETFs may be modernizing an antiquated market.
Capital Client Group, Inc.
ETF Launches Are Outpacing Closures. Can the Momentum Last?
What goes up, must come down. Or so it would seem.
It’s no secret that ETF launches have exploded this year, with nearly 800 new funds hitting the market in the first nine months of 2025 alone, already ahead of last year’s total of 746. Asset flows have also climbed, with net year-to-date sales topping $1.1 trillion last month. On the other hand, closures have largely remained steady, with 266 funds shuttering in the first half of this year, compared with 253 in the first half of last year, according to ETFGI. But, experts said those numbers could rise as new products struggle to gain the assets needed to survive.
“Am I concerned that there’s too many products coming out, and that some of them are going to close? Yes,” said Todd Rosenbluth, head of ETF trends research at VettaFi. “BlackRock or any other asset manager is not closing a popular ETF because they have too many of them. They’re pulling inventory off the shelf that isn’t selling to make room for something more likely to sell.”
Encountering Closures of the ETF Kind
Despite issuers launching funds left and right, there’s reason to believe that new assets can keep up, at least for now. Certain strategies are more popular than others, with areas like spot bitcoin having more success because of the sheer amount of investor interest, said Greg Stumm, president and CEO of American Beacon Advisors. “There are 11 of these [spot bitcoin ETFs], and I’d originally thought that by this time, you’d have seen half of them close. But even the smaller ones are $500 million dollars,” Stumm said.
Still, spaces that aren’t the size of crypto will see closures. “If you’re running the same product as someone else, how are you going to see that delta?” Stumm added. According to ETFGI, closures have been roughly on par with prior years:
- There were 622 total closures in 2024, with the United States reporting the highest number, at 196.
- There were 179 closures in the first four months of 2025.
Circle of Life: Although they can be an inconvenience for investors, closures are part of the natural rhythm of the ETF industry, Rosenbluth said. It’s more of an opportunity cost for issuers to run unpopular or unprofitable funds. “Marketing efforts, sales efforts, listing fees: There are costs to running an ETF,” he added. “If you’ve got something waiting in the wings … it’s prudent to take something off the shelf and put something new on.”