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These ETFs are not referencing Marvel movies either!
Right, so: Corgi
You may know Corgi as the AI fintech startup that listed a couple of founder-led ETFs earlier this year. Sensible products. Clear thesis. Perfectly respectable entry into the market.
And then, apparently, someone had a very large Irish coffee.
This batch contains twenty-seven Corgi-branded ETFs landing on the NYSE in a single wave. Twenty-seven. Quantum computing, genomics, battery storage, lithography, longevity consumers, IP licensing, coffee and energy drinks, surveillance, ports and freight, beauty and skincare, sports betting, digital banking, natural gas turbines, space and satellite, cybersecurity, shipping logistics, emerging markets. The full bingo card, essentially.
Before I get to the names, I have to give credit to whoever did the tickers. The shipping fund is HULL. The energy grid fund is JOUL. The surveillance fund is EYES. The buy now pay later fund is LATR. The longevity consumer fund is YUNG. The skincare ETF is called GLAM. This is, without question, the best single afternoon of ETF ticker work I have seen in years, these guys have won ticker of the year about five times over in a single day.
But the fund names. We need to talk about the fund names.
The Corgi US War Machine ETF (WR)
Not the Corgi Aerospace and Defence ETF. Not the Corgi Global Security and Industrials ETF. Not even something vague about “critical infrastructure” or “sovereign capabilities.”
The War Machine ETF.
Defence-themed products have existed for decades. They all operate on a shared, unspoken agreement: you do not say what the thing is. “Aerospace and Defence” is the standard. “Security” gets used. If you are feeling poetic, “Global Military Solutions.” The genre has maintained its dignity through careful use of abstraction.
Corgi looked at this convention, considered it carefully, and decided: no.
Ticker WR. Name: War Machine. I have no criticism. I have a kind of profound respect for the product naming committee that chose this name and wish I could have been in on that meeting.
The Corgi Buy Now Pay Later ETF (LATR)
The ticker is LATR.
For a Buy Now Pay Later fund.
I'll give you a second.
The BNPL sector has had a turbulent few years. Regulatory attention from consumer finance watchdogs, questions about credit quality as consumer stress increased, and high-profile stocks that moved violently in both directions as rate environments shifted. The market is growing. Long-term projections are large. There is still a thesis here.
But whoever chose LATR as the ticker for a buy now pay later product has achieved something rare. It is either the most self-aware act of financial product naming in recent memory, or a complete accident. I would not be surprised if this AI startup is burning tokens just to find the best tickers and building products as an afterthought. I am fully supportive either way.
The Hexis Active Nicotine Engagement ETF (NICO)
If the War Machine ETF is the product that said the quiet part loud, the Hexis Active Nicotine Engagement ETF is the one that decided the quiet part needed more layers of packaging.
“Active Nicotine Engagement.” Four words. Each doing so much work.
The fund invests in tobacco companies, specifically those generating meaningful revenue from reduced-risk products: vaping, heated tobacco, nicotine pouches. The tilt toward transition is genuine and the underlying thesis is reasonable. The tobacco sector has been quietly reinventing its delivery mechanisms for some time, and there is a real argument to be made about structural opportunity.
To help select holdings, Hexis developed the Hexis Nicotine Transition Score. This is a real proprietary metric. With real criteria. I need you to understand that I did not make this up.
Ticker: NICO.
I want to frame this and put it on a wall somewhere.
The Billionaires Club ETF (CLUB)
Every so often a product name captures something true about the industry without meaning to.
The Billionaires Club ETF tracks companies held by ultra-high-net-worth investors, drawn from public 13F disclosures. The idea is simple: the very wealthy have decided to buy these stocks, and perhaps that is useful information. In execution it is a perfectly reasonable research-driven equity product. It may even outperform.
But the name. The Billionaires Club. Ticker CLUB. Listed on the NYSE, available for purchase by anyone with a brokerage account. A fund whose entire brand proposition is that it lets you invest alongside people who would not recognise you in a lift.
The billionaires, for the record, are not buying CLUB.
The Calm Ones
In the same batch, filed without fanfare: four products from Aptus. The January, April, July, and October Deep Buffer ETFs. Structured downside protection, one for each quarter of the year. Defined buffers. No leverage. No puns in the ticker. No committee discussion about whether "War Machine" tested well with focus groups.
Just four sensible products, covering the calendar methodically, built for people who would like to not lose money in a drawdown.
They landed in the same filing wave as WR. These are the sensible ones, but it will be interesting to measure the success compared to the more catchy ones. Which works best product or positioning.
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