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  • 2 months ago
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00:00So let's talk about this new launch because I'm taking a look at the name, I'm taking a look at
00:03your website. You say that IALT combines the potential for alternative investing with the
00:11convenience of an ETF. What about this is that alternatives exposure? Yeah, so a number of
00:19things. So first of all, there's a lot of confusion around alternatives, the discussion you were
00:24talking earlier with my colleagues about private credit and different alternative asset classes.
00:28That is not what we're talking about here. We're talking about alternative strategies. And what
00:33Eric talked about, hedge fund like strategies is really what we're anchoring on. And what does that
00:39mean? It means long, short, market neutral investing. So when you think about what we have available to
00:46us in the ETF world, and again, Eric's segment, how small this category is, because investors in this
00:52wrapper haven't had access to these types of strategies. And what's differentiating about
00:57these strategies is they get to what's underneath the surface, right? So, so much of what we talk
01:03about in markets, we've talked about over years in markets, are rates going up, rates going down,
01:08stocks going up, do you like AI, do you not like AI? But there are so many other things happening in
01:13financial markets underneath the surface. And that's what we try to get at in this fund through a long
01:19portfolio, through a short portfolio, and taking out the market directionality. With the idea,
01:24basically, that this can lend another source of returns through investing in all the stuff
01:30that's underneath, both on the long side and the short side, different than the market
01:35directionality in the markets. So how do you fit this into your portfolio? Ideally, it checks the
01:40alternatives strategy list. But I wonder what you give up exposure to in order to make room for this.
01:46Yeah. So this is about, again, going back to what Eric said in his segment, you know,
01:51why hasn't this been a big category? Because beta exposure has been great. People have been really
01:56happy with beta, but they've been so happy and so successfully rewarded with their beta. What's
02:02happened to their beta, right? The other story, it's incredibly concentrated, like the most concentrated
02:07we've seen, top 10 stocks, right? So people have a lot of concentration in their portfolios. So
02:11one of the questions for 2026, and I think it's a huge theme, is how do I diversify my portfolio?
02:17Not our old conversation of like stock and bond diversification, but how do I diversify
02:22my equity portfolio? Because just by owning market cap weighted benchmarks, I'm incredibly
02:27concentrated. So what IALT, I think, slots into portfolio construction, because we aim for a higher
02:35risk target on this fund, we have more ambition in terms of the risk budgets that we're allocating to
02:40the various strategies. This can target an equity-like return and substitute for equity exposure.
02:46And that's a way of diversifying. Without, key point here, without having to make a call
02:51on, is it the top of the market? Is it a bubble or not a bubble? Very hard things to do. This
02:57allows you to diversify away from that by, again, getting access to that alternative strategies
03:02of long, short market neutral investing.
03:05So with advisors, you've got to sell them on why they need ALTS. That's it. You've got your
03:08work cut out for you, but it's possible. Now, institutions would already understand this.
03:13They like this stuff. But to them, I find them a little elitist. They want the real hedge fund
03:17for some reason, like they don't want it in an ETF, which feels like the public pool.
03:21How do you overcome that selling to actual institutions?
03:24So it's a segmented market, and you're right. There's an understanding of sources of returns,
03:31right? So if you really understand how is my portfolio manager delivering returns,
03:37then you look at, okay, I want to have diversified sources of returns. And the most diversifying
03:44source of return is true alpha. But there is very little true alpha in the world. It's very
03:51hard to deliver. It's also why it commands such a premium price in the institutional investment
03:58universe, because there's a recognition of what is true alpha versus what are other forms of
04:04outperforming. Outperformance is not alpha, because I can outperform by out yielding. I can
04:10outperform by out risking. That's a tilt. And there's a lot of that that goes on in the world.
04:16Retail, and this is what the opportunity is to grow that category, is to really grow the
04:22appreciation of, if I add alpha in my portfolio, and the challenge to us in the producers of these
04:28products is to really demonstrate true alpha and not just another tilt product. That's what we're
04:33doing in IELTS by taking from our institutional expertise, modifying it for what fits within the
04:40ETF wrapper and ETF ecosystem to make it work and available for retail investors.
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