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A new product on the Swiss exchange uses an ensemble of machine-learning models, a Black-Litterman optimiser and a committee of three AI-generated views to decide how much of your money should be in bitcoin. Its most recent published answer is all of it.
Bitcoin AI Strategy ETP (BTCAI, SIX Swiss Exchange)
The marketing line is the best piece of copywriting in the batch: “Bitcoin, wenn's läuft. Cash, wenn's kracht.” Bitcoin when it is running, cash when it crashes. Behind it sits an index that splits its allocation each month between bitcoin and US dollar cash, with cash allowed anywhere from 0% to 80%. Bitcoin never falls below 20%, so even the machine's most frightened mood is still a fifth in.
The machinery is serious. Several independently trained models read market, news and macro data and forecast not only where bitcoin might go but how confident they are about it. As the CEO of Aisot, the ETH Zurich spin-off that built them, puts it: “Our models estimate how Bitcoin might develop, and how certain that estimate is.” Those views are blended with market-implied expectations, and the rebalance is rules-based with no discretionary overrides.
Then comes the publication schedule. The weights are disclosed with at least a one-month lag, and the latest set shows 100% bitcoin and 0% cash. For now, the most sophisticated bitcoin product on the exchange holds exactly what the simplest one does. The difference is the fee: 1.50% a year, plus a 10% performance fee above a high-water mark, plus rebalancing costs.
It is worth knowing what the wrapper is. This is a collateralised tracker certificate from Maverix Securities, not a fund, and the term sheet says plainly that it is not a collective investment scheme. Maverix is also the index sponsor, the index administrator and the calculation agent. The backtest beats bitcoin handsomely with roughly half the drawdown, which is what backtests are for.
None of this makes the model wrong. Bitcoin may well be running. But a cash switch earns its keep only on the day it flips, and investors will find out it has flipped a month after the fact.
Direxion U.S. 500 Plus ETF (SPXP, NYSE Arca)
This fund began life in its filings as the Direxion S&P 500 Plus ETF, tracking an S&P Dow Jones index. Before it reached the exchange, the S&P brand was gone, replaced by an index from Auspice Capital Advisors and the more generic “U.S. 500”. The ticker stayed.
The “Plus” is the interesting word. The index has “100% long exposure to E-mini S&P 500 futures and 100% long exposure to a managed futures strategy”, which is roughly 200 cents of exposure for every dollar invested. The second hundred cents goes long or short across 21 futures markets, from corn and cotton to the Japanese yen and the 30-year bond, sized by a 25-day volatility measure. The total expense ratio is 0.92%.
The ticker sits in a family where it may cause confusion. Direxion already owns SPXL and SPXS, its 3x daily leveraged S&P 500 funds. SPXP is not a daily reset product, but it does start each day at about twice the exposure of an index fund. Somebody searching for the bull fund with a slip of the finger will find a commodity pool instead.
Synera Funds Takumi+ ETF (SMTJ, NYSE Arca)
Takumi is the Japanese word for a master craftsman, and this fund needs one to explain it. It combines a stock-picked portfolio of Japanese equities with up to 20% in a systematic managed futures programme, and the prospectus states that “the Fund provides leveraged exposure to a combination of Japanese equities and managed futures”.
The org chart is a craft in itself. Millburn is the adviser and runs the futures. Twin Oak has discretion over the equity sleeve. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management Americas supplies the stock model on a non-discretionary basis and, the prospectus notes, “has no assets under management”. Exchange Traded Concepts does the trading. That is four firms for one ticker, and the prospectus concedes that its “novel and unique structure” may limit the number of market makers willing to handle it.
The fee arrangement is equally layered. The unitary management fee is 2.00%, waived down to about 0.86% for an initial period. The prospectus cost example shows what happens when the waiver ends: $88 for the first year, $519 for three, on a $10,000 investment. The fund was called the Japan Active+ ETF until shortly before launch, so the craftsman arrived late, but he did arrive.
Russell Investments Multisector Bond ETF (RINK, NYSE Arca)
Russell Investments has a complicated history with ETFs. It launched more than two dozen in a single burst, closed almost all of them barely two years later, shut the last survivor a few years after that, and has now returned with a new range. RINK is roughly the eighth of the second generation.
The firm's pitch for the comeback is multi-manager investing, and its own marketing says its ETFs are “actively built for more”. This one has a single external manager, Marathon Asset Management, alongside a Russell-run sleeve. The prospectus allows that “In the future, the Fund may be advised by multiple money managers”, which is a multi-manager fund in the sense that a house with one bedroom is a family home.
The mandate is as wide as bond funds get: high yield, distressed debt, emerging markets, bank loans including covenant-lite, securitised credit and currency derivatives “for speculative purposes”, with no maturity limits. It costs 0.49% all in. The firm itself, meanwhile, has agreed to be sold to a consortium led by B Capital, so the comeback range will soon have new owners as well as new funds.
NEOS Silver High Income ETF (SLVI, Cboe BZX)
The most important sentence in this prospectus is eight words long: “The Fund does not invest in silver directly.” Instead, it holds physically backed silver ETPs through a Cayman subsidiary, builds synthetic long silver from paired calls and puts, and then sells calls against the lot for monthly income.
The prospectus describes the trade with refreshing candour, saying the strategy “effectively converts a portion of the potential upside” into current income. With silver, the upside is usually the reason people turn up. The fee is 0.78%, close to its gold sibling, IAUI.
FT Vest Laddered Autocallable Buffer & Resilient Income ETF (ACYB, NYSE Arca)
I recently wrote that the laddered autocallable was a sensible engineering response to a real flaw. First Trust and Vest have now built a ladder of “at least 24 Synthetic Autocallable Contracts”, each linked to the worst performer of the S&P 500, the Russell 2000 and the Nasdaq-100, which the prospectus describes, accurately, as “theoretically created financial instruments”.
Two words in the name do the work. “Resilient” means the coupons are not contingent on where the indices sit. “Buffer” means that at maturity the first 10% to 15% of the worst performer's loss is absorbed, and everything beyond that is the holder's. The prospectus is clear that the buffer comes only from the contracts and “the Fund itself does not provide any stated buffer against losses”. The fee is 0.75%.
Amplify Top 10 Semiconductors ETF (CPU, NYSE Arca)
I recently noted that semiconductors were among the Amplify Top 10 funds still waiting their turn. The wait is over. The fund holds the ten semiconductor companies with the strongest recent price momentum, drawn from a Bloomberg thematic universe, and rebalances quarterly at 0.49%.
The sub-adviser is Samsung Asset Management, which has already listed a near-twin in Korea. A Korean manager picking the world's ten hottest chip stocks for American investors is a neat inversion of the usual arrangement, in which American issuers package Korean chips.
Oakmark U.S. Concentrated ETF (OAKL, NYSE Arca)
And then a value manager doing exactly what it has always done. The fund holds “typically fifteen to twenty-five issuers”, no more than 10% in any one company, all large American businesses bought below an estimate of their worth and sold when they reach it. The team is the one behind the long-running Oakmark Select Fund, and the net fee is 0.59%.
The prospectus contains a line that every thematic fund in this batch could pin above its desk: “Value investors can sometimes fall into the trap of buying a stock that is inexpensive for a reason.” No models, no futures, no synthetic contracts. Just twenty-odd companies and a written price at which each one stops being interesting. It will never be the most exciting ticker on the tape, and that is rather the point.
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