Ticker Madness

it's kind of springtime and sunny out. It's the greatest tournament for multiple reasons for me, and I'm a big basketball fan. Two. So we have a special way to celebrate the spirit of March Madness with E t f S. We've gone to Bloomberg News reporters who cover E t F S. We've asked them each to pick their favorite ticker, eight different teams, eight different tickers, and we've seated them based on assets under management, and we're going to have

a gigantic SmackDown on today's show. It's going to be epic to determine the very best ticker of all. Before you tune out, thinking this has nothing to do with invest thing, let me tell you two reasons this actually matters. And what what you're gonna hear? First of all, marketing and ETFs is huge. Of the flows go to two or three companies black Rock, Vanguarden, State Street. That leaves a hundred and twenty companies fighting over of your money.

And tickers is a huge marketing advantage if you have a good one, it sticks out every category. Now it's fifty t F s. So picking a ticker is big business. It matters, and it can really help sell an e t F. But it can also be a shiny object that leads you to something you know once. So the ticker shouldn't be all and I think we're gonna, you know, explore a lot of that. So so give us a

couple of examples of how it can help block. The blockchain ETF that came out with the ticker bl okay came out the same day as another blockchain ETF with a ticker blcn, which is, let's admit it, a little more boring. Block is just easy. You can say it, it's a it's now. Yeah, that block has one seventy million blc N give me another one. Fan versus p w n D FAN is the Global wind Energy p

w n D is also a wind energy. Obviously Fan kills and Fan has eighty eight million dollars and more importantly, it's alive p w n D liquidated in the graveyard. So literally worst case scenario, like the better chicker wins the war. But a good ticker doesn't always save the day absolutely, Like a ticker is like icing on the cake, but it's not the cake. For example, here's some good

tickers where from the graveyard. These are E t F that are liquidated, waste wst E for the waste management ETF gone room for the car, et F that's gone, bite restaurants, f A A for airlines, and puff for sins as basically gambling in cigarette stocks gone. Why why didn't those work? A lot of times it comes down to timing. But like in the case of Careu Australia small cap that was around when Australia has some good runs, but it's just too niche. It sliced the it sliced

the onion too thinly, and no one cares. This episode ticker madness. Okay, So joining us today, we have a bunch of different Bloomberg News reporters and we also have an editor named David Papadopoulos, who's going to be the judge deciding who advances. Now, I've already paid him off so that I win this whole thing. But maybe you guys have paid him off too. But David, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. And actually, Joel I, I was greatly appreciative, and I was shocked that no

one else drew me a little cash. It's not too late. He's probably still able to take bribes um, which is actually really in the spirit of marsh madness with what's actually been going on with the n C double A. Okay, first matchup Move versus E M. T Y. I'm gonna throw it over to that bracket. Can you introduce yourselves what you do and why you've picked the tickers that

you've picked. Okay, I'm Suzanne Whale. I picked Move, which is the ticker for Van Eck Factor's Agro Business et F. I picked because it's a classic, it's been around since two thousand seven. It's the most evocative ticker out there. You think, moo, you think, what do you think if you think of a farm, you think of agri business. That's it. That's the two seed. The seventh seed, Ben Steve Hman, Yeah, yourself. My name is Ben Steve Berman.

I cover personal finance here and my pick is E M T Y or empty, which is the pro shares decline of the retail story TF. So basically, this is what I love about it is it's funny, and also it's this delightfully evil bet against main street retail in the United States. This is a brand new ETF came out in November, doesn't have very many assets so far.

But what I love is, first all that's funny, and second of all that it's very evocative of this post apocalyptic landscape that so many malls and shopping centers all across this country you're turning into. And it's basically this bet that all that gonna go and can continue to go and get worse, and Amazon's gonna eat everybody's lunch.

I want to throw a little shade on this. I want to know I use the word evocative, Okay, So I think it's sort of you know, I've got a new ticker for Ben's argument here, which is like l A M A lamb. So I'm just throwing that out there. So before I rule here, I gotta ask so Ben, as I make that bet against right, and I bet sort of the retail pocalypse tangibly, How do I? How does this eat? How does it? What is it invest in?

How does that? So? It is? It uses a swap and which means that it's it's basically shorting another index, which is the bricks and mortar retail stores index, and it's so that that has all the classics, Gap, Dick, Sporting Goods, Dollar General, Ross Stores, like all these traditional mainline retailers that are struggling. The other thing I love about it is that, as Eric and Joe have talked about on this show many times, betting on one of

these inverse ets is actually pretty dangerous strategy. So in some ways, the empty that could be happening here is not just the emptying of the retail stores. It could be the emptying of the investment accounts of the people who invest in this thing, because it could be a really dangerous play. That's nice, Ben, that just went next level. Well, she's saying before I rule here, do you do a final any final words? Um, I'm just going with classic and I'm going with like food, this is food, this

is global, this is huge. I'm being a positive, positive force in the world supposed to be negativity. We've got, We've got, we've got a ruling, and we have we have our very first upset after Moon after Moon was putting it on him early and it looked like a total blowout. It looked like it was early on. It was move twenty three. Empty seven Empty just kind of

kept wearing me down. Ultimately, what told me beyond the great Empty name, is that it is just a huge part of the of the American story, the investing story, in the economy story, what empty is about, and that that's opposed to Yeah, I suppose that's correct, that's post. This is stunning. I'm shocked. You know. I frequently call Moo the Mona Lisa of E T F tickers. It's perfect, that usually makes the number one of everybody's list. But man, empty is pretty good and made a good case I

should have paid off Papa Topolos. Okay, now we're gonna go to Philadelphia to the Wells Fargo Center where Eric is a three seed, and we kind of let him have a little bit of an advantage, which he actually has two tickers, Yin and Yang, which he's going to talk about as a grouping and then with a six seed Carolina Wilson with Tan ca. Yeah, Carolina Wilson, I cover E t F s for the U S Stocks team here, and I'm from Miami, Florida, where everyone and

their mother quite literally wants to be more tan. And I think actually the floor area has the most tanning salons and any other state in the country. Yeah, I think I was pretty torn undering research on on spray

tans and fake tans versus what tan actually does. But no, so I have the Guggenheim Solar Energy Index e t F. And since the whole point of this is to defend the importance of a ticker, Tan has already undergone an easy peasy stress test scenario for this, and Eric has Actually this is from one of your handy dandy Bloomberg. So two solar ETFs launched about ten years ago, within about a week of each other. So Tan was one. What a great taker. And kWt I think it's like

for kill a lot. But do you want to guess where most of the assets on volume one too? And Dan, but I'm talking about Tan raking in close to four hundred million dollars in assets and kWt didn't even manage to get much more than fifteen million dollars. So if you don't want to believe me, I mean you could follow the money. You've done your research, alright, Eric, what

do you got? I picked UH to leverage ETFs triple leveraged China Yin and Yang the Direction Daily Foot see China Bull three x shares and the Bear three x shares. And the reason I picked these is because who doesn't love the Yin yang symbol. I mean, it's basically thousands of years old. It's a from Chinese philosophy, which is perfect because here you're betting on either bullish China or barish China, right, and it's it's one of the rare ts where you don't even need to know the name.

Really you know what's going on there. I mean you probably should because it's leveraged, and that adds a whole another wrinkle. But I think it's a good ticker, especially because when you have leverage going one way and the other, it's real nice to have two things that appear to be opposite, and I think this one nails it. And you know, when you go back, look, the balance of the universe is sort of contained in the Yin yang symbol, and to me, that's sort of the leverage et F area.

You've got, you know, equal number going long, equal number going short. But unfortunately they all don't bounce out. They do lose money over time. So as we've talked about many times their trading tools. But in our traffic light system, this is a hard red light. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it's just a killer ticker. But just a little dig on tan. I think tan is what you get. In fact, I think you get

burnt when you hold tan susception. But but the investors of that get a nice juicy yield because since those solar stocks are so hated, they are really like that they're required for shorts, and so this thing brings in some extra cash because of its like aggressive securities crowd. The crowd is not even agreement. I am literally surrounded by e T F nerds. Yeah, except for the Greek, except for the job um. So we have a ruling.

We have a ruling, and and what is ultimately it was also it was a close game here, but ultimately sometimes the higher seed wins, and the higher seed despite the whole thing being a touch convoluted. Frankly, you know, triple leverage, the multiple tickers, the higher seed wins out. Carolina did give up a good fight, ultimately a touch too much stick on Florida. I only want to hear so much about Florida, just as you prepare for for next time around. But I did like the I did

like to fight. And also the fact that he pulled out that plunge on you late. That wasn't helpful. I'm by the way, why do people are to eat any bits? Wouldn't you need them more of? Not enough? It's all right Brackett too. We've got Danny Burger in London with her ticker this is a one seed s m h. And she's going against Lukawa at an eighth seed with a ticker boon. Danny, Who are you? What do you do?

What's your ticker? I am a cross asset reporter. I besides reporting on cross asset, I also eat a lot of snacks out of the London pantry. I consider that my profession you're joining. I am based in London, yes indeed, but as you can tell from my accent, I come from New York, so I I am hip with the US based tickers. For some reason, the tickers aren't as exciting in Europe, so I did go with a U S one this time around. And why why SMH? Okay, well, first of all, I want to take issue with the

fact that I'm a one seed this. I think I'm coming here as the underdog because s m H was not intended to be a fun ticker. This is the Van Eck vector's semiconductor e t F. And the reason SMH is so brilliant is because it's not gimmicky, but still it is fresh. It is new. S MH, for those who don't know, is internet lingo for shaking my head. And there's no way that Van Eck decided when they made s MH that they wanted a ticker that was shaking my head. Yeah, but you know one point three

billion and sets. Okay, yeah, But the reason I love this so much is that every single time this thing sells off, they're outflows. You can say, s MH a billion from this fund is awesome. I love how like accidentally perfect this is. Well. Vadek is the same company that has a ticker crack the reserve for the triple leverage junior goal miners, but it's actually the some sort of like oil type ETF. I've heard enough from the from London. Give me the real h down. I want

to hear what they have to say. All right, lu Kawa Boone. Al Right, I'm Luka I am also a Crosshasset reporter and as you will be able to tell at some point from my accent, originally from Canada. But you know again before starting to extol the virtues of Boone, and you know that is the n Y S. Pickens oil response e t F A first really again, like Danny over there, like to question the wisdom of both

Danny and whoever put these tickers together. The number one rank is going to a product that's an abbreviation for a negative form of non verbal communication, coming about from what millennial do when they're too lazy to spell things. When I look at my portfolio, the last thing I want to do is think shaking my head. Last thing like this terrible, terrible branding, terrible advertising. Danny makes the

case against it better than I ever could. But it's hard for like this octogenary in this multi multi, multi multi millionaira wildcat raider turned oil tycoon could ever be considered an underdog or the new kid on the block. But that's the case with Boone. This e t F is it's brand new, it's got very little in assets. But what it is is it's basically it's a reflection of the most defining macro trend, probably since the financial crisis,

and that's the rise of U S Energy. Ta Boon, along with his lieutenants who helped formulate this Equal Weight Fund, wants you to go in all in on the US energy renaissance. We got things like I'll away in there. You've got things like cutie Brands, First Solar. But inasmuch as this is kind of, you know, an energy and an energy link to play, I think the timing is also pretty darn good for Boone. Right now, the relative performance of energy stocks versus the spires has trailed and

lagged the oil price by the most on record. So you know, at some point we've got to be playing catch up, and I think Boone is the way to catch up. And you know, some e t F providers they want to have their name on the ice of the Madison Square Garden. Like Spider T. Boon Pickens, he wants his name on the front of the stadium both his name and his company's name. So if you've got some aspiration, I think you're going. Here's the thing. I don't need a rebottle period. I've got I've got to

I've got a ruling. By the way, eight seed coming out thick. Yeah, you gotta lay it all up. I don't know what you're gonna have for leader rounds, but it's like eight seeds showing up. That's all I got. Vermont over here. Yeah, No, the H doesn't have to do in this case. Worry about later rounds because H's got knocked out. I'm gonna say this so so, Luke, here's the thing. I love the energy and the firepower, and and I think as you come back to this

next year, you know you're gonna do well. But all the end of the day, what does he in here? Is boon is It's just it's just ultimate, it's just too scrawny. It's just I can't two and a half million. It's I just I just can't. I'm not Feelish's back to back La. He's still fighting. He's still and one one. I'm gonna fit in London, London. You survived in advance, but you gotta bring a little more fire that it

was sleeping. It was leep, I'm not you know, if ultimately Boone didn't do itself in with its scrawniness, that you would have gotten knocked out. You gotta bring a little, a little something more for the next round we have. We have Joel is the what seed? Jel, I'm a four seed, you're a four seed, and we have Rachel Evans who is a five five. Oh, so this is a good one. This is that four five matchup. Anybody could win here. Joel is coming at us with the

ticker would, and Rachel has the ticker she. So we're gonna start with the four seed Joel, go ahead, all right. Wood is the I Shares Global Timber four Street et F. I picked this one because I'm an Oregonian. Yeah. So back when the Ducks won their only n C Double A title, it was all about the big guys from Oregon, right, So I'm picking the big trees. Going with the Wood.

This is a thematic et F, which is one of the things that Eric and I often get to talk about it on the show because they're in vogue a little bit. Uh. This has been crushing it up over the last year. It's got companies that are not only US and North American. You got a little bit of Canadian in there, You've got some Brazil you also got some other global stuff. So I like that it's diversified regionally. And then what's been crushing it has been the fact

that e commerce has been buying up everything paper. Right, You've got all these Amazon Prime boxes. You need cardboard for that. So I think it's a strong play. I will say that I don't like this head to head magic. I'm yeah, I'm I'm really scared of this, but I've made my case all right. Well, and so Rachel, just a little bit who you are and also the ticker that you brought and why you did it. So my

name is Rachel Evans. I'm an E t F reporter based here in New York, though we're a very international bunch today as I'm from the UK originally. So I've come to you guys with SHE, which is the Spider s s G a Gender Diversity Index e TF SHE. Now what that E t F does is it invests in companies that really have a positive attitude towards getting women onto boards, getting women into executive positions. And having

women CEOs, chairs, other executives and directors. The reason I chose this ticker is because for me, a ticker should stick in the mind, should be simple, it should be evocative and tell you what the fund does, but it should also be memorable. Now this is where for for me, she really stands out, partly because of my English heritage. Right, so growing up in the nine nineties and the UK, notting Hill was a massive movie, and the end of the credits notting Hill you have Elvis Costello doing a

great version of She by Charles Asnivor. Every time I look up this ticker on the terminal, I sing she in my head and sometimes occasionally out loud as well. So for me, can you sing it now? She face?

So I can't forget not only are we in the middle of the meat you moment, but I picked would head to head with she going to bring up another thing that's perfect for this tape, but I will say, I just want there's some rony here, which you know, I looked up your holdings number one holding fer Yes, So top of all this, there's a viagraa moment going on.

So it's just like that's the interesting thing when you do look at the holdings like this is often categorized as an environmental social Governance fund, and obviously on the governance side you can see why that is. But it doesn't necessarily tick the boxes that you might see from a typical E s G fund. It's not steering clear of your kind of multinationals. It's steering into that and rewarding those that really kind of actually advocate for women.

But I would just say on the point of the Me too movement, these guys have been incredible with their marketing from the word go. This This et F was launched on International Women's Stay Back in twenty six they set up the Fearless Girl sculpture downtown. Everybody shrinking over here, Rachel. How much money is in the ct F. It's just over three million, and that's its weakness. But when you look at e t F, you really only start to see growth and assets from about the three year mark onwards.

She now has two years under its belt, so I'm thinking that come March next year, we're really going to start to see people moving money in. But with three hundred million, it's hardly all right, all right, there haven't been many blowouts so far, but this was this was one of them. Rachel just put it out. I'm going to say one of the things. I mean now it was Rachel, really good man. I mean, you're just for

you next year. Don't come in with your first thought them being like, you know, I picked this one because I'm for more a god in. Nobody can't. No one can't. It's pronounced Oregon. So that's shame on you. We'll see if you come back next year. You can't fire the judge I just did. It's actually organized show. By the way, this this reminded me of Rocky four when Drago fought Apollo Creed. Yeah, that was exactly what happened here. I'm not sure if Joel's alive. I'll take the Russian. I'll

take that all right. Back to Oregon to you quietly shrinking away now, Okay, Final four, number one seed s MH, number four, seed she, number seven seed e m t y number three seed Yin and Yang. First off, we're gonna do SMH versus She. That's number one versus number four. Danny. All right, So, just like University of Virginia, which happens to be my alma mater, I am now claiming this number one seed and will not be complaining about being

seated as number one. And you know why, it's just like Virginia because it's not flashy, it's not in your face, and it's patient, which is exactly what s MH is not. Only, as I said before, is this some great internet lingo for shaking my head that works awesomely as a reporter when covering this. But this e t F waited for its time to shine. Semiconductor stocks are hot right now, and in the past two years, this thing has doubled

its assets. It didn't need to go after some try to pander to the crowd, need to erect a statue on walls up. It sat there. It played defense, just like University of Virginia, and like Tony Bennett, who not only is a singer but is also the coach of UNI. Versity of Virginia taught its team patients, which is exactly what this fund did with its holdings until they came into favor. And you know what this makes me say,

s MH. Shake in my head. This is a great fire she alright, she I feel like I'm a bit of a disadvantage with all the basketball metaphors going on. But nonetheless, SHE is the e t F that you can pretty much buy if you want to get your corporate governance exposure sorted out right. You've got the me too movement which we touched on before that that is really having a day. So and this is something that I think is going to develop over the next year.

So I think if you start to watch the flows going into SHE, I think we're going to start to see an uptick in these like this fund is becoming more and more seasoned in terms of the amount of time it's been out in the market and what it does that's very different to other funds out there in the E s G space Environmental social governance is that it really allows you to tilt your holdings to stuff

that actually benefits women are. The way it does that is you have the ratio of women on boards to the overall boards, you have the ratio of women executives the overall executives. And it's actually quite as sophisticated methodology. It's not as simple as SMH perhaps, but the methodology really allows you to be very targeted in your approach. Having that target has actually really paid off. If you look at the returns for for she over the last year.

You're looking at around fifteent or so. Now that's pretty good. That's pretty much in line with the SMP slightly below, but pretty much in line with the Rachel. Please san Antonio spurs basketball. It's like highly efficient triangle, lots of passes and she just like keeps it coming. Danny, any final comments before we are before we have a ruling. I'm I'm pretty cloar. I think I think I know what I'm gonna say, But hit me with any final thought.

Final thought is why Hugo, Who's I can't beat that? So? Um? There's a an expression in horse racing, uh the bounce when a horse runs a huge race and a huge figure one race and then tends to regress a little bit aggression. I think we had a bit of a

regression here. She shouldn't have, i mean, ultimately put too much of a beating on Webber and just should have saved a touch of that first round was a tough matchup, it was, but you didn't ultimately maybe she ultimately didn't need to win by forty three points that first day. So and whereas wah whu wah, indeed sort of, you know, after a sleepy round one backing into a round two wah wah was very impressive. S mh. You are in the finals. Go back to your locker room, get pumped up.

And if you bring that same firepower to the finals, I mean you're gonna be a handfuls No mean reversion here, no mean reversion best person one. Al Right, we got a number one seed in the final. And now let's see a number seven versus a number three. We got Ben with E. M. T. Y. You had a great first round. Eric. You know, I don't know what to say. You're the three. Let's hear your battle. So, like I said,

I went with Yin and Yang. This is the triple leverage China Long and triple leverage China Short, which is I mean arguably a masterpiece. Because the Yin Yang symbol is a masterpiece. It's it's older than gold. Okay, it dates back to like fourteenth century BC. It's been around forever. What other ticker can say that? And I personally have a personal relationship with the Yang symbol because I'm very lazy about Halloween and when year in college, I was

like trying to get a costume together. So I was like, oh, I'll be a cow. So I painted my face light. I put a little dot on it, like to like the spot of the cow. I went to the party. Everyone's like, dude, you're the Yin Yang symbol, and so I was. I proceeded to be the Yin Yang single symbol for the next couple of years for Halloween, which is a great costume by the way, everybody loves it. So I realized then how powerful and like well the symbol is and it's perfect for the metaphor you know,

it says everything. You don't even need to know what the E t F does your long china or your short chin to take a pick. I like how he saved the personal touch for the second round, right, Unlike someone else, I was gonna say, can I just go shake to the next like alright, ben um. This reminds me of like your college roommate who read one book on Buddhism and then thinks he's Richard Dear or Dalai Lama.

Like this is like literally Yin Yang is like this is an American ETF based on the fifty biggest Chinese stocks, and like the people put it together probably know as much about this Eastern philosophy as you or me. This is like, this is Panda Express, This is not authentic Chinese food. Um E M T Y. So the price to earnings ratio of Amazon right now is three D

twenty four. How do you bet on the decline of American retail which is the big, one of the biggest economic stories right now, and when a recession hits, it's going to be epic. It could be epic if these retailers can't pull out of it and develop a better online strategy. I think that this, of course I said in the first round, this could totally empty out your bank account. But I also think that this is actually providing something for investors that they need a way to

bet against the decline of retail. A bit on the decline of retail. And yes, it's a little evil to bet on profiting from millions of people losing their livelihoods, but it's a legit strategy. It is evil. The other thing I would say about empty is, if you're really committed to this strategy, why not go with clicks which is short those small stocks, but long Amazon and the e commerce Well not everyone. Can you know, throw multiple ETFs in there, you know, in their pair um empty

final thoughts. My final thought is think back to when you were a teenager. Well, I think back when to when I was a teenager, and think about nostalgically about walking around the mall, going to the gap, going to the video game store, going to the bookstore. All that's over.

Life in America has changed. Kids aren't hanging out in malls, are hanging out on Instagram when what'sapp there's a this is an important tool to profit from that And things just got real quiet of real cultural moment in the you know, in you in the US. I actually think, strangely enough that find a little plea may have Have you gone to j C Penny lately? It's not bad that you can get gloves, and there's a lot of older Jenny, by the way, who has the money, the

older people. I'm telling you, j C. Penny is full of people. The mall is underrated. You can try stuff on. It's not that bad. It's gonna take forty years for this trade to play out. Forty years empty. Forty years is gonna take me to make a return on this thing. No, it's the downward spiral. These malls are emptying out, hence the name, and when a store leaves them all, they

can't replace that revenue. We had a great video game on on Bloomberg dot com that basically let you manage them all, and there was no way to win it because every time of retailer was suffering, you had to cut your maintenance budget, your cleaning budget. It was this fun exercise, these things in a downward spiral, and uh, the next recession is going to be really painful, so that this game ends with big Ben clock running out, crosses over, Eric steps back, knocks it down, ball game

over in a barn burner. I was really really inclined just because I'm you know, this is my little the judge's personal preference. I'm a sucker for the triple leverage, triple leverage. I mean, I was really I was just my natural want was to go that way. But I gotta believe the the emptying of America's molle it is a big story. Despite what Yin Yang says, it is a big Eric's over there with a towel owner's head. It's true. I'm like the Isaiah Thomas. I'm not even

gonna like shake his hand beat me. Yeah, I'm gonna like really be bitter as opposed to Rachel Ben I hate you all right. So it was so and he's probably exhausted now because he gets he's gonna go against the number one seed who's just lying, lying and wait in London, right's shadow boxing right now as we speak. I think we got in fairness to empty, who just emptied the tank. You gotta give him like thirty seconds to get up, clear as head, walk around, right, and

you gotta did you gotta bring it again. This is one of these finals nobody expected. Might not draw the viewership of say a duke right like a move versus Tan would, but it's gonna be intriguing and I see a close match. So we got number one seed shaking my head smh versus number seven seed empty. So Papa, did we start with the seventh seed or the one seed? I think you gotta give the seventh seed their shot to come out find seven, seven seed. You've never been here, yeah,

seventh seed. The nerves, the nerves have been a seven seeding in the final. Ye okay, I've got it. Versus secular semi conductors, go up, go down, up and down and up and down since semiconductor was created. And uh, what I'm talking about here with empty is a long term secular play. Now is an inverse ETF the best way to do something among term I'm not really sure I'm gonna go to bat for that, but this is

something that is happening. Drift listen. I know I appreciate Ben saying that because we just had an episode on like why you probably shouldn't use inverse c ts. So Ben's just being prudent. I wouldn't. I'm a personal finance reporter. I'm not gonna I don't want anybody to lose their use their money on this fair enough, So remind me of returns on the inception of this thing and returns. What's a little more informative. That's interesting. Uh, it's actually

down about ten percent since it originated. I think it hasn't done that great. I think that there's been a small recovery from the retail stocks, but it's a dead cat bounce and this is a this is a good long term play. So so this is the kind of thing, right, so it pays nothing, I lose a little, I lose a little, and then when it hits your thinking, I'm like, it's gonna hit like in a big number all of a sudden out of the blue. Is that is that

the way we play out conceptually? That's that's the plan. Yeah, it's it's wait till either there's a really bad recession or wait till some of these retailers just can't keep up. And you guess what kind of number I could be and you could be looking at when this thing hit.

If this thing pops, well, the one thing about inverse funds is they are path dependent, as they say, and if if we do see them like go down in a nice steady path, this thing will start compounding a bit and you could be ringing up some serious returns. That's sort of why it's a little dangerous because it is so inviting, but you'd have to this thing would really hit the triple seven's if you had a nice, steady,

long term decline at these mall stores. I'm getting an assist from Luke Kyle and this one who points out retail sector may see more defaults. So this isn't everything must go going out of business moment. Luke from the

day helping him from the ground. I think Danny number one I won't take offense to the fact that uh Luke gave Ben the assist in this moment, because I would like to point out, on the eighteenth of April two thousand seventeen, Luke unintentionally gave me an assist by tweeting at me, whoa at Danny Berger can't believe you jump the gun in writing off this e t F s m H. So even though you battled against me in the first round, I'm so sorry, I'm still going

to say that you gave me an assist here, all right. So what comes to mind, and Eric was touching on this a little bit, is the idea that my competitor, you know, I've been I've been studying the tapes though though he is undefeated. I've been thinking about other e t s along his path that have been defeated before. And what comes to mind our short e t s. You know, there there was another short e t F out there that people said was a sure thing that

you'd be making money off of it. Uh you know, not saying that E M T Y is as uh poses a structural threat to the market like some other E t F did, But you know what people said that uh X I v looked like a short thing, a short E t F, just you know, picking up pennies and in front of a steam roller. Uh. And then here we have this classic E t F following semiconductors. Uh. Such a great story to the market of this super liquid e t F following these stocks which have really

carried the market higher. And it's a really interesting story to see how that's evolved. But this is a clean play. Uh. It's it's uh not using swaps to get its exposure. Uh. This is a pure e t F, so pure that they accidentally gave it a ticker that we could all use to make fun of it. But well before before I rule, I got a question for the panel for Eric here. So and this is actually gonna have a

lot of bearing on the on my my decision. So she's comparing empty with essentially some iteration of the VIX short And as I immediately think about it, conceptually, to me, they're actually even though they're both short, they involved shorting

the pretty different concepts. Uh, in the sense that right you are essentially you were picking up nickels along the way, you're essentially selling that insurance, right you are betting on the continuous stability things, whereas he's actually he's going for the home run. He's saying, I'm gonna day to day. I don't care, right, I'm looking for the home run down the road. Walk me to walk me through this. Yeah,

it's sort of it's like throwing some elbows. Uh, you could call the foul because empty is no x I V. However, they are both short. But look, I saw it as scrappy personally. I thought it's just like a you know, it's a physical game. Is playoff basketball and the finals. In no way for anyone listening out there, x I V was just in a league of its own in terms of what it was doing. Um, there are a lot of short ETFs. They're probably two hundred of them

that didn't implode over the past fifteen years. X IVY is a special case. But so that's why bringing in is a little bit illegal. If the refs didn't see it, the ref the judge, but the judge was on the judge was on it. So here, so here we are, Here we are I think I have I think for a final? Is it a little sleepy? No? No, no, no, right into it? No, it's good. I'm into it. Kind of offset the Luke thing, because that was a little It's like the guy from the stands holding up something

on the paybo the other team to pree throws. Yeah, I've got I've got one word to describe League, which is bitter. He seems like he's a little bitter. But you know, here's so, here's the thing, Danny, she was just like meticulously like a machine, just working at break down. And and and I and I was starting to lean that way, but you know what, I just sort of

keep going back to. I keep going back to and I know, Eric, uh, it wasn't feeling this so much, but it just strikes me that yet the fate of the American consumer and the American mall, I'm actually just feeling that story is a big story. And and and and and I know in a lot of this is why it was the number seven seed. It's this short and and and it's and it's minus ten return and it's only gonna pay out, you know, if it goes big. But I don't know if it's actually gonna ever pay

out the et of itself. But it paid out on this show, Empty Villanova. It's taking this thing, is taking this thing down and and Virginia were Virginia was playing offense and they were doing well, but it was really in the attack. But this is ultimately Virginia's defensive team because you know when they're when they're in this full offensive mode, every once in a while they can make a mistakes. Well, Danny, thank you so much for joining us from London. You put up a good battle. But

then personal finance for the wind. And by the way, Dandy, your constant ation prizes that Van X probably gonna call you the day after this comes out and ask you for a job. Does a victor have any words to say? I just want to say, don't invest in this. No, no, I can't wait a minute. Danny, Luke, Rachel, Suzanne, Ben Carolina, thank you so much for joining the show. This was an absolute glass and a special props to David Pappadopolis.

Thank you very well. We get some cans applause. So we started with marketing and lo and behold empty kind of a great chicker. It ends up winning it all. What do you think, Well, this kind of really hits to the whole thing because the marketing is what gets you. It's like a shiny object that gets you close to

what it holds. But as this went on, you know, you could see how the strategy sorted to become the bigger way that the judgment was made, and that ultimately is probably pretty symbolic of how this happens, because the ticker really shouldn't be the only thing. It's something else going on, right, But the ticker is important because again you have in a category, the ticker can draw you in. But ultimately, like Ben said, he loves the ticker as a marketing I know, but he's not that hot about

what's going on underneath. And so Ben would be a classic investor who's doing his job of maybe he was sold on the ticker and the name, looked at the holdings and said no. Thanks. Thanks for listening to Trilliance. Special things to Danny Burger, Lukawa, David Papadapos, Rachel Evans, Suzanne Willie, Ben, Steve Berman, Carolina Wilson. This was a

fun episode. Until next time, you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, and probably a bunch of other places I haven't heard about yet. We'd love to hear from you. All of us are on Twitter, Eric's at Eric call Tunas, I'm at Joel Webber Show Trillions is produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Francesca Leavy is the head of Bloomberg podcast by