Episode 4: Roundhill’s David Mazza Discusses the Growth of Thematic ETFs Alongside ETF Portfolio Planning in Today’s Marketplace

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[TRANSCRIPT]

Douglas Yones:

Hello, and welcome to ETF Central, the podcast, where we bring the latest and greatest ETF industry perspectives directly to you through in-depth conversations with key thought leaders from across the ETF ecosystem. I'm your host, Douglas Yones, the Head of Exchange Traded Products at the New York Stock Exchange, the Home of ETFs.

Now, today, I'm joined by David Mazza. He is the Chief Strategy Officer at Roundhill ETFs. Dave is also a longtime industry veteran, and frankly, he is a smiling face in the ETF world, as well as a longtime friend of the New York Stock Exchange. Dave, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you so much for being here.

David Mazza:

Hey, it's a real pleasure to be here. And thank you for having me.

Douglas Yones:

Dave, take us to now. Tell us a little bit about your current role at Roundhill. How are you spending your time each day?

David Mazza:

Yeah. When you have a title called Chief Strategy Officer, I think in some ways it says it all. Roundhill Investments is primarily an ETF provider focused on providing unique solutions to the ETF community. Many ETF providers, both large and small, might use the term unique, but the firm was founded on a premise that there remain opportunities in the market that have yet to be addressed by traditional ETF providers. The idea is to target investment teams, investment themes, excuse me, that are both exciting and different, but also easy to understand.

I think as we may talk about, the ETF marketplace as it's matured has been incredibly great for investors, not just from a tax standpoint and a cost standpoint, but also access to different markets. I think that can still happen today, and that's the beauty of the structure. At Roundhill, I touch on nearly everything that the firm is doing. We're in a position, we believe, to begin to capture and provide solutions for ETF investors as we're on the cuffs of the next big wave of ETF adoption, in my opinion.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. For those that may have caught an earlier podcast, we did an interesting one with Shawn McNinch at BBH. They did their 10th annual ETF global survey, and you could see it in the data, frankly. It was pretty unbelievable. 90% of all survey participants plan to either increase or maintain the level of ETF ownership. We see it every single day. We're getting closer and closer, Dave. You might not believe it because you've been with us for a long time. We're almost at 2000 ETFs listed just here at the New York Stock Exchange, so that'll be a big day for us.

I started out by mentioning that your ETF background is extensive. You are an industry veteran. You're well-known in a good way. I guess it's always good. It's good to say someone is well-known. You should frame it out at how they're known, but you're known in such a great way. Would you mind taking us through a little bit of your work history? How did you get to Chief Strategy Officer?

David Mazza:

Yeah. Happy to do so. I think what's interesting is in today's world, there are probably college students who are saying, "Hey, I want to be in the ETF industry." Just as it was 20 years ago or 30 years ago, someone just said, "Hey, I want to work at one of the great active managers that are out there primarily distributing their funds through mutual funds or other vehicles."

For me, I was fortunate enough to start at State Street Global Advisors right after graduating from Boston College. I worked in a group called Charitable Asset Management there, and it's a bit of a legacy of the firm's trust, being a trust bank's history. I touched on everything. It was really a true associate role. Everything from handling calls from clients to working with portfolio managers, legal, compliance, and really everything in between.

It gave me an opportunity to say, "Hey, there was something interesting at the time happening in quantitative investing." As you may remember, Doug, the growth of 13030 products and things of that nature. I, through hell and high water, worked my way onto a portfolio management team at State Street called Global Enhanced Equities. That was an incredible experience and it happened in a time-

Douglas Yones:

Dave, if I can cut you off, you say hell or high water, but could you share a little bit about that? Because I think it's so fascinating how you came in, you took a role where you're like, "Hey, this isn't my final destination role." I think that's where a lot of times young people get a little mixed up. They have this vision of where they want to be, but they're focused on that and maybe not the sideways moves we all have had to take. Could you take us through that moment of like, "Hey, I'm going to get in there, I'm going to go from this starter role to there"?

David Mazza:

Yeah. No, and this is something that I am glad you interrupted. Because it's actually something that I speak about when someone reaches out to me or have an opportunity to speak to folks earlier in their career. Someone gave me the advice, treat your 20s, or a better way to put it is just the early stage of your career, as if you're still in school in certain ways. By that I mean, be comfortable acquiring different skills. Those could be technical skills; those could be interpersonal skills and everything in between. For me, I didn't study finance in college. I actually have a double major in philosophy and political science. In many ways, the furthest from quantitative investing, but there are some similarities. The team was really focused on exploiting behavioral biases with the stock selection models and risk management models that they were employing, and that resonated with me.

I was very clear, not just through the interview process, but with the team, getting to know those folks that are influential. Not just the heads of the business, but portfolio managers, analysts that were on the team, folks that maybe in some ways be my peer, to show them my work ethic and my interest in the space and say, "Hey, I know I'm coming at a disadvantage. I know what you're looking for on paper is X, Y, Z, but let me show you what I've done so far." Built almost a mini portfolio. Think about an artist with a portfolio of their work.

In the few years that I had been working, I worked on a few different projects and improved some processes. I had the advantage at the time and in some ways, with the growth of generative AI and the like, I sometimes feel like it's slipping away, but I still feel young enough to understand it is, I had an advantage. I knew certain technologies better than some folks that had been in the seat for a long time. I played into that and that really was a help there. And then from there, I got to be honest, that's when the hard work started. It was everything from doing your old school running to get cups of coffee and things of that nature, to staying late and helping debug a model that maybe happened.

What's also really unique is it happened during what was the Quant Crisis in August 2007, and then the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. In some ways, a really tough time. It was really difficult to see folks' livelihoods and careers upended by that experience. But for a young person, it put me in the epicenter, and I used it as a learning experience and was a sponge. Interestingly enough, over time, that team started getting interested and saying, "Hey, our Exchange Traded Funds, our ETFs' making it harder for us to outperform."

I actually published a paper I wrote, I should say was published in a bit of a small, maybe some would say obscure, but influential for index investing, Academic Journal. My paper was focused on that. The name was pretty straightforward, Do ETFs Increase Correlations? The conclusion was no, ETFs did not cause markets to be more inefficient, nor did the growth of passing investing. There was not a relationship with that, and I think we've proved that out time and time again, even though that paper at this point is about 10 years old. Some of the folks on the ETF business at State Street and the SPDR Business got interested and said, "Hey, why is a kid down a few floors below us writing about ETFs? What's going on here?" And then a dialogue started, and a conversation started in regard to that.

Douglas Yones:

I have to bring that up again, Dave. You've got such really big points that I don't want to miss what you're saying. The first is willingness to put yourself out there and do things you hadn't necessarily done before, and how impactful that can be for individuals, for your careers. The other thing you said in there, and I don't want people to miss this, is that sometimes you learn the most from tough scenarios, the coffee-gathering stage of your life. I think even for me, when I started out in the industry, I was working for basically a broker, and we were cold calling. It's crazy to say it now, but we were cold calling out of phone books. And yet, where I learned some of the most important, valuable lessons about investing, about human behaviors, mechanics, I learned during those Saturday sessions when these very senior brokers would share these insights and wisdom. "You should read this book and you should do this, and you should learn."

Don't miss out on those opportunities, like you said, when you're on the earlier stage of life. Don't miss opportunities to keep learning. I think that's so incredible. And then you're talking now about writing this piece. People forget you can publish easier and better than you ever can before. We all have access to LinkedIn. By the way, you should be following Dave Mazza. Look him up, M-A-Z-Z-A. You should be following him on LinkedIn because he's active out there, and he teaches, and he educates. If you have something to say and something to write about, there's no better time in the space. Sorry to interrupt you, Dave, but you're bringing up so many good points.

David Mazza:

No, I think that's another good point. Your story about working with those brokers and some of those Saturday sessions resonates with me, because it's easy earlier in your career, or even at different stages, to what I'd say get a bit lost or get a bit discouraged. But to your point, you can take things upon yourself. I wouldn't advocate anyone going off the reservation or something like that, but what I've found is nearly all of the time, if you show an interest in an aptitude, people are willing to let you stick your neck out there a little bit and willing to give you a shot and a chance. If you never ask or never take it upon yourself to try, it's hard to do that. I think it's really important because the same happened to me.

In some ways, when I started in the SPDR business, which was already, as we know, State Street in connection with a bunch of great partners, including the American Stock Exchange, was able to bring the first ETF to market in the US, SPY. Of course, the whole industry owes it to the immense work that was done by many to do that. It was already a business that was chugging along, but it was in a time of transition as a lot of new entrants were getting into the space, many now who were startups, but now, we take for granted or have hundreds of ETFs listed around the globe. It was a bit of a reset for me, a new learning. I was not familiar with the ins and outs of the vehicle. To me, that's when I had to dive back in again. From there, it was an opportunity to continue to grow.

Doug, if you remember, we spent many times on different panels together during that time period. It was an exciting time for the industry. In some ways, some parallels to what's happening now, as there's a lot of new entrants into the space. There was a lot of innovation happening: innovation happening in commodities and fixed income and international equities that we take for granted now, but were truly, truly, truly innovative at the time. There at State Street, that's where I really feel I was able to blossom and add a lot of value to that business and to our clients along the way. My last role at State Street was Head of ETF and Mutual Fund Research, and that was a great opportunity to spend a lot of time connecting with our clients, helping them understand their needs, helping them construct portfolios with ETFs, and also just educating the marketplace on many of the unique solutions that were coming to bear.

And then I had the opportunity to pivot again when I worked for Oppenheimer Funds, which is now part of Invesco, but most of my career was more coming from the investment and research side, or strategist side. There, I made the conscious decision to pivot, to get a better understanding of distribution. That's something that I would also recommend folks do is sometimes if you're looking to expand your skillset or flex different muscles, you may have to take not necessarily a lateral move, but just a different move.

The corporate ladder today, I've never experienced it, and I think this is probably even more so today, if you're starting out, doesn't just exist with rung after rung. There are good opportunities or can be good opportunities for folks to expand beyond that. I was more focused on sales and marketing there, helping what was a startup in a traditional active mutual fund manager. That was an exciting time, a very different experience. At the time, we were able to launch a lot of great ETFs, some of which still exist today at Invesco.

And then I took another pivot over to be the Head of Product at Direxion. That was a great experience. One, I had to learn about leverage and inverse ETFs and the unique offerings that they have for tactical traders, and also to compliment that lineup with thematic ETFs that paired well from that business' perspective. Now, here I am at Roundhill Investments. And for me, it wraps everything up together that I've touched on. Whether it's from the investment side or the research side, into the product side, the sales, the marketing. That's why I'm really excited to be part of the firm and continue to build off of what Roundhill has done previously.

Douglas Yones:

By the way, if you're listening in and saying, "How do I pick up some of this knowledge along the way without going from job to job," as a reminder, the ETF Institute, it is now live on etfcentral.com. You can go, you become a Certified ETF Advisor. There's unbelievable content in there, and you will be able to learn a lot of the different skills and background about the ETF industry by getting certified. Please take a look at that.

Dave, you took us through a nice way in which I guess you've pivoted a lot of different ways to pick up a lot of different skills. Was there a point though, in your career where you just had this aha moment and you were like, "I need to be in ETFs, I need to stay in ETFs, I need to do all these things to add to my arsenal of knowledge for ETFs"?

David Mazza:

I have an exact moment actually, and I remember exactly where I was. It was in Downtown Manhattan, in Battery Park City. Actually, at this point, I guess I can say that I was approached in interviewing for a role that would've had me leave the ETF industry, more focused on equity strategy. You can imagine many of the firms that have those positions. As I was going through that process, I learned a lot about interviewing through that because interviewing at a bulge bracket bank is very different than an asset manager, or anywhere else that I had worked.

To me, when I was getting close toward the end of that, I did have that aha moment and said, "Wait a minute. While on paper this may look incredibly attractive and there could be incredibly attractive upside compensation, I'd be giving up a lot of what people are racing toward." Again, as it is today, as the ETF industry continues to disrupt and provide unique solutions to the marketplace, which would've been a departure.

As I went through that process, I ultimately didn't go down that route. Because to me, I had the realization that ETFs are where the marketplace was going, and that's something that I should stay a part of. Fortunately, that was the right decision, particularly as we know that the research industry has been disrupted for other reasons. That's something that was hard to do at the time and maybe wise beyond my years at the time, but certainly paid off.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. Sometimes just getting those little red flags that say, "Hey, maybe this isn't the best thing," looking for those red flags can be so powerful. Maybe it's not even a look back. Maybe it's like, do you look around yourself and maybe you're a little bit more self-aware even than I am, but do you have best practices, your tips for success?

David Mazza:

I'm not a self-help guru. Maybe that would be another career pivot I have at some point, but the way I think about it is, again, it's easy to either jump, to want to think the grass is always greener. It's easy, particularly in challenging markets. In many ways, we're living through now. I think last year was emblematic of that, that we relearned that interest rates aren't always going to be at zero and equity markets aren't going to have incredibly low volatility. The same with bond markets, actually. It's easy to get distracted or want to jump to the next thing but continue to focus on maybe the poor beliefs that you have.

For me, a belief, and some of this came from so much of my time at State Street is that, over the long run, diversified portfolios that have an index-based approach at their core, certainly can be complemented with different active management around it. Particularly the cost that can come with it can be beneficial to investors over the long run. That, to me, has always been grounding, even as I've seen the ETF industry emerge into all different areas, which is great. To me, it's, go back to your core beliefs if you have them. And if you don't, maybe that's okay too, and just be true to that. But also, be willing to make some mistakes and experiment along the way.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I look at some of the people that have grown up around us, and the themes are the same. They wake up with a smile on their face. They're excited to learn new things. They want to stretch. People say, "I have an idea." It's like, "Tell me all about it." Just there are these commonalities, even though the personalities can be so different.

Here you are, Dave. You've experienced ETFs in a lot of different ways. You've been at one of the largest ETF firms in the world. You've been at maybe mid-size, but fastest-growing ETFs. Now, you're at Roundhill. How does Roundhill differ?

David Mazza:

One of the things to me that Roundhill differs at significantly is its focus on, I'd say, one, trying to bring novel products to market. And that is extremely competitive. In the ETF industry, we now offer so many different tools. There are so many solutions. But that means as a provider, as an issuer, it is more challenging to find success. I think you and I remember days when you launched a product and people would come, the fuel-the-dreams model. That's no longer the case. There needs to be education. There need to be things of that way.

But I'd also say two things that are really important. One is wanting to connect with investors in different ways, and particularly younger investors and younger advisors. That's our focus on social media: our focus on connecting with peers in that way and developing relationships with the community. The founders of the firm, Will Hershey and Tim Maloney, are significantly younger than I would say, than many other founders in the ETF industry. And I think that's fun. I think that's great, and one of the reasons why they've had success, is because they're coming at it from a different perspective.

That doesn't mean there's something bad with larger issuers or something of that nature. It's just, that's what's different about us. That's something that I think is incredibly exciting. Because particularly as the industry gets younger, we know there's a tradition, excuse me, a transition of financial advisors who are getting younger. There are more retail investors who care about their portfolios and are using ETFs. That, to me, is something that is a bit of an edge that Roundhill has and one that we want to continue to bring.

Because to me, I wake up every day still thinking ETFs are fun. They used to be a bit of a backwater in the broader asset management industry, but I've always thought they're incredibly fun. Whether it's getting access to sports betting, the metaverse or things like convertible bonds and the like, and everything in between. The vehicle itself has so many great attributes, and the industry is still really young. We just celebrated 30 years and to me, there's so much more that it's going to bring.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. I can actually pinpoint for you, Dave, when I met Will and Tim. I remember the exact moment because in fact, we were at a conference that's coming up later in May, Inside ETFs. If you're not going to be there, please come. Come find me. Come find all of my team. It's a great ETF event. Will and Tim came up to me. No joke. They were, I think, in board shorts, T-shirts, hats on, and they said, "Hey, we've got some really good ideas for ETFs and we're probably going to launch. We wanted to introduce ourselves." I was like, "This is great. Let's talk, let's hang out."

It leads perfectly into basically what was one of the first ETFs that they ended up launching. But you could tell right away the energy level, how willing they were to do things a little differently than the traditional ETF industry had been, and really willing to carve their own way. And that's what Roundhill has done. For those investors that might be listening in, if you're not familiar with the Roundhill name, I bet, and that's a dad joke there, Dave, but I bet they might know about some of your ETFs.

You've got the Sports Betting ETF. That's one usually on top of most people's minds, BETZ. You've got your video game industry ETF, NERD, N-E-R-D. You've got a social sentiment ETF, M-E-M-E, MEME. Probably should get awards every year for ticker placement. But could you talk a little bit about the way you think about launching some of these thematic ETF brands, if you will, at Roundhill?

David Mazza:

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. I think it's a good one, and it is true. When I think about thematics, let's take a step back and then I'll bring it to Roundhill. We know that in many ways, to me, thematics are the evolution of what was once just equity investing, then sector investing in the late '90s, then industry investing in the early 2000s, through the 2000s. And then thematics, which took traditional industries in some ways, flipped them on their head, or was looking at new, emerging disruptive themes that could be coming. There's a lot of different thematic ETFs out there. Some of them, I think, to be quite frank, are better than others for a few reasons.

One is, I'd say, is the theme itself relevant? I can't tell you with certainty. Just like any time we deviate from a broad-based equity benchmark, is this going to out or underperform over the long run? But investors need to believe in it. Does it make sense? Sports betting is something that, in my opinion, does. It has long-term staying power, not just because of the legalization and commercialization of it, but also just the interest that folks will continue to have as that occurs with some great companies in the space and as they move toward profitability. It's important to say, "Hey, is the theme relevant?"

And then something that again, occurred at Roundhill before I got there, but we'll continue to do going forward is, is the ETF providing exposure to the theme that you want? Is it not just another watered-down technology play? But if you're building a cloud computing ETF, certainly you're going to need the mega-cap growth companies like a Microsoft or an Amazon or Alphabet that provide cloud services. But are there other names in there that make sense? Is it not just a re-weighted traditional large cap index? That's so important. It goes back to the idea of knowing what you own and knowing why you own it. These are some basics from Finance 101, but as the ETF industry continues to proliferate, it's important.

At Roundhill, when it comes to thematics, we're continually looking for unique opportunities that we see out there. We have some exciting filings, which will hopefully come to market soon in new areas. And then it's also saying, again, are there tools and solutions that investors may be looking for or looking to access that they don't have now? Again, what's fascinating to me is even with thousands of ETFs, I think there's still opportunities in certain areas to slice and dice the market in better ways for more precision, or to provide access to areas that haven't yet come to bear.

Douglas Yones:

Yeah. I think, Dave, a great example, this was last year, I was sitting at a sporting event with a friend of mine. He pulls out his phone. He starts throwing bets on the game like a lot of people do nowadays. He says to me, "Yeah, I'm probably just throwing my money away in these bets. I really should be buying the companies." It was like, "You think? Did you know there's an ETF that does that?" He's like, "No, I had no idea." And then we ended up in a conversation on bets. It's like a lot of your ETFs and I wasn't being cheeky.

People should go to roundhillinvestments.com. Look through the entire lineup. There's a Metaverse ETF. You've got Digital Infrastructure. You guys are hitting some of the biggest themes that are out there that people are saying to themselves, "How do I invest in this sector? How do I get in on that?" A lot of times, you guys are there with the ETF, and in fact, your newest lineup is really a new type of ETF. You've got these ETFs, you're calling them Big Sectors, B-I-G. Could you tell us a little bit about how they work?

David Mazza:

Yeah, happy to do so. The Big ETFs or Big Sectors are taking, I think, a concept that has existed with ETFs that goes back decades but hasn't been able to come to bear until some recent regulatory changes. And that's the idea of providing the precision that investors may be looking for. We know the word precision has been used by ETF providers, in some ways, I'll say since the start of time. But when we think about sectors, so let's think about financials or technology and you can provide the example, is that with existing products or existing indexes, they may be providing the access that it says: S&P 500 Financials or something, or Russell 1000, what have you.

But that comes with a lot of baggage. Because even though Berkshire Hathaway is an amazing company, and who am I just to even talk about it? But when people are looking for financials, it may not be that. They also may not be looking for the insurance companies or in today's market, some of the smaller regional banks that are going through a crisis of confidence. Big B, for example, provides exposure to just the six largest US money center banks, and all of them are global cities. It's just exposure on an equal-weighted basis quarterly to Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.

Big B gives you that highly liquid, highly concentrated exposure to the leaders in the sector. The idea is, just provide me the leaders without having exposure to other areas. Again, there could be an environment where I could be constructing a portfolio where I say, "Hey, I'm willing to take some of the risks that comes out there with smaller names or with things that may not exactly be banks." But I think we just learned that there is an opportunity both for traders and for long-term investing to say, "Hey, just give me that concentration." That's what I'm really interested in when I'm looking to allocate to the space.

The same can be said about Big T. Big T really, it's a FANGAM ETF and it's the world's first. There is your Microsoft, your Alphabet, your Apple, Amazon and Meta, and that's just it. It's just the five companies. It's that precise exposure to the five mega-cap tech companies, which are known as the FANGAM Stocks. Again, you can get access to those companies in hundreds of ETFs. And in fact, they may be top 10 or top five holdings in dozens of ETFs, but it comes with other exposure. If someone's looking for, I'd say, a surgical knife approach to investing in trading, the Big Sectors can do that.

Douglas Yones:

By the way, if anyone's out there listening, whoever designed your ticker symbols for the Big lineup either has read with their kids the Dr. Seuss A to Z, or hasn't read that book, because it'll drive you mad. But that's all I can think about every time I see Big B reading that book to my kids or trying to avoid reading that book to my kids.

Let's talk a little bit about portfolio management. You've been in this space for a while. How should investors be thinking about the lineup of the Roundhill ETFs? How do they add them to the portfolios? Do they need to be active traders? How do they think about their positioning?

David Mazza:

Yeah. I think there are a few ways, and I'll talk about the Bigs for a moment. There are a few ways those could be used. If you are an active trader and whether you're using leverage or inverse products, or just in the market more frequently, these are excellent tools. Because you do avoid the single-stock risk that can still come with choosing one of these names. And we saw in the most recent earnings season, a handful of tech companies really beat expectations, others did not. If you're not interested in single-stock risk, and of course, some people are, and who am I to say that they may not be right all the time? But if you want the benefits of an ETF, the efficiency of the ETF, this can be a great tool particularly to use around earning season, both through expression bullish or even a bearish view.

But then, over the long term, I think there's an opportunity for investors, and maybe banks are the great example of that in saying, "Hey, do I want to stick with a traditional bank ETF or a traditional financials ETF that has watered-down exposure, has exposure to areas that potentially are going to struggle as we see a flight of deposits from smaller banks to larger ones? Or if there's, I'd say, forced mergers and acquisitions in this space?" This is just exposure to those companies that are likely to benefit, have more diversified product lines. Over the long run, there could be a great opportunity for this to be used in a portfolio for someone looking for that view as well.

Douglas Yones:

You bring up the word opportunity. I want to stick to that, Dave. What's next? Where are the opportunities in the market today?

David Mazza:

Yeah. It's interesting and I touched on this a few moments ago. 10 years ago, when I first started in ETFs, there was still a race to say, "Hey, is there a new country that hasn't been done?" Or then it was, "Is there a new factor that maybe we could develop, or a better way to build a low-vol portfolio or a value portfolio?" Of course, there are still folks who were trafficking in that space and launching new, exciting areas. But now, to me, now that nearly every asset class has been touched, we're starting to see the ETF structure be matured and used in new ways.

I think some of the buffer-based products are good examples of that. Some income-based products are good examples of that. As we know, there are now single-stock ETFs in the market, and then our concentrated Big Sectors are good examples of that. The industry continues to mature. The structure of the ETF as an investment vehicle is shown not just that it's incredibly resilient, that it can be used in a lot of different ways. But I still think whether we're talking stocks or fixed income, there's going to be some exciting things coming.

We're pretty excited about some of the filings that we have in the market. Hopefully, some are coming soon that are in the thematic space, but in areas that have yet to be touched. And then also areas that may be more traditional, that are just, in our opinion, better takes on them or a more precise way to gain access to what people may actually be looking for when they're searching for a particular ETF.

Douglas Yones:

You've been in the space for a while. You've been involved in a lot of ETF launches. Do you look back at any one particular launch and say, "Hey, this might be my favorite ETF," for any reason, even if it's just the launch process?

David Mazza:

Well, as a parent, I think we've learned you can't pick a favorite child, but what I can say is a few that I'm proud of. Not to cop out, but I'm an ETF geek. I love ETFS, so it's hard to pick one. But let's talk about, and I'll quickly go through my favorite or favorite two at each firm I've been fortunate to be a part of. At State Street, so many great products to choose from, such a history of innovation. Two that I'm very proud of are in the fixed-income space. That's TOTL and SRLN, actively managed, fixed-income products. SRLN is sub-advised by Blackstone. TOTL is sub-advised by DoubleLine. We were told at the time; you can't do this. They're not going to work. Actively managed loans? It's not going to be possible. And guess what? It is. Both of those products, are multi-billion.

At Oppenheimer, a ticker that comes to mind is OMFL, and this is now a multi-billion dollar fund. Took some time to get there, and that's a systematic approach to shifting the factor exposures in the portfolio based off of what's happening in the macroeconomic environment direction. Also, a lot of great funds. I think it’s hard not to say the innovation that we were able to bring to market with single-stock ETFs. Being a part of that was really exciting.

Now, at Roundhill, of course, really proud of the Bigs, another unique approach to ETF investing. And then we have a few more tricks up our sleeve, a few more ideas in the laboratory that I think may actually become whether my true favorite, which will be hard for me to admit, or are emerging up there with some of the others that I mentioned before.

Douglas Yones:

I love it. As a reminder, you can find out about any one of those ETFs, all about them, data, everything you need, for free at etfcentral.com. Please go there. Check it out. Learn a lot about ETFs. Learn about the advisor, and FINRA designation that we talked about.

Dave, if someone's listening, investors or advisors, how should they best be working with you, engaging with the team? Is there a preferred method?

David Mazza:

Well, I think, please, you said it a few times, check out our website, roundhillinvestments.com. There, you can learn about our products directly or on our research page, and that's something that we pride ourselves on. As we know, the market has been proliferated with ETFs, many which are great, others maybe not so much, but that's ultimately for investors to decide. But we spent a lot of time looking to educate the marketplace. I think it's really important still, particularly as a new generation of advisors and retail investors and even institutions, look toward the ETF structure for the first time to provide education, not just on the themes. We're talking about why they make sense, why they're relevant. But also, how are we building the portfolio to meet that theme and that need?

But we're also, as noted, as a firm and as individuals, very active on social media, whether that's Twitter or LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to us. We communicate with our clientele very frequently, in unique ways, whether it's sending us an email or sending us a message on those platforms. And we get back to you. We want to speak with you. We want to help you understand, or just have you share ideas of what you're thinking about, whether it's for a product or what's happening in the markets.

Douglas Yones:

There's nothing better than reaching out to someone who you know has a smile on their face, which I can promise you, the team at Roundhill does. Also, interesting. On the roundhillinvestments.com page, when you go to research, there's fantastic articles. There's a really cool graph about historical wagers on the Kentucky Derby race. I'm not going to spoil it, but please go to roundhillinvestments.com and go to research. You will not be disappointed.

That is a wrap on this edition of ETF Centrals The Podcast. As a reminder, you can find this episode, as well as many other episodes, and you can spend time utilizing the free ETF screener on the website, etfcentral.com. Thanks again, Dave, for being here. Thank you for sharing your insights. Thank you for the partnership and friendship as well.

Please, everyone, stay tuned for upcoming episodes featuring thought leaders from across the ETF ecosystem. I'm Douglas Yones, Head of Exchange Traded Funds at the New York Stock Exchange, the Home of ETFs.