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Dave Nadig
3:00
Good afternoon!  Welcome to ETF.com Live!
As always you can enter questions in the box below, and I'll get to as many as I can in the next half hour or so.
We'll post a transcript by the end of the day as well, in case you can't stick around and follow along.
With that, let's get rolling!
Mireille V.
3:01
So in your opinion, is it better for publicly traded companies to report semiannually or quarterly?
Dave Nadig
3:01
Interesting question!  So, in general, I'm a big fan of transparency.
3:02
And I actually don't think the quarterly reporting is inherently a bad thing -- I get that there's overhead at the public company level, but I dont think it moves the needle on corporate profits, having an extra person in the accounting or IR department
I think the bigger issue is the culture of guidance around quarterly reports.  I would be fine seeing more companies basically just do simple quarterly reports, but then semi-annual full conference calls with guidance and so on.
But in truth, I think there's essentially no chance (or much appetite) to changing the status quo.
3:03
As far as the ETF world goes -- honestly, most ETFs are mechancical, so reporting can essentially be automated and daily -- which it basically is!
3:04
There's very little new/interesting information in an ETF quarterly or semi annual report you don't see almost daily anyway.
Zack
3:04
Hi Dave, What, if anything, does the S&P topping 2900 bode for ETFs?
Dave Nadig
3:04
Hi Zack - so, perhaps this is obvious, but the fetish of round numbers is utterly pointless.
3:05
It's a bit like drawing lines on a chart showing support and resistance.  The only reason those lines matter is because enough investors (or algos) believe they matter.
they're entirely psychological.
So, every time we cross one of these lines, the only really important question is to ask how it affects market psychology.
3:06
something like 2900 -- does it make people think "ooooh, it's getting pricey" or does it make people think "ooooh, it's headed to the moon!"
And ultimately, that's just a sentiment call, and there are much better measures of sentiment out there (put call ratio, what-have-you).
Daphne Carter
3:06
Just a matter of time before Vanguard exceeds BlackRock as ETF flows king, or ...?
Dave Nadig
3:06
It all just depends when you measure.
3:07
Through the end of July, 2018 flows had Vanguard and Blackrock neck and neck.  I think Blackrock was around 48B and Vanguard was about 44B.
Of course, on any given week or 4 week window or 3 month window, you can find spaces where Vanguard was in the lead
3:08
There's no question cost is winning the flows battle - and everyone who'se playing that game is doing reasonably well -- at least in gathering the assets.
Sean Enos
3:08
Hello Dave, Do you think we'll see more cannibis ETFs come on the market?
Dave Nadig
3:08
Hi Sean -- so, the challenge in a small niche like this is differentiation.
We have  MJ out there, who sort of "backed in" to getting a product out by changing from a Latin American real estate fund into a pot fund.
3:09
I think it will be difficult for too many other folks to play that same game.
And even if they did, what would the angle be that put them out front, vs MJ.
I can think of a few - cost being th ebig one.
I supposed geography could be the other.
3:10
but there are precious few companies to chase in a liquid format at the moment.
If you imagine a world where it becomes federally legalized, or at least decriminalized from a financial services perspective, then I think its a bit of a gold rush, and you'll see it like gold minors
where you have "big" and "junior" and some geographic options
Todd Rosenbluth - CFRA research
3:10
Recently an international equity mutual fund from Harbor announced a large planned capital gains payout for remaining shareholders due in part to a manager change and outflows. Is this a good time to remind investors that its rare for intl ETFs like VEA to have cap gains even when index change occurs?
Dave Nadig
3:11
Hi Todd!  Yes indeed.  That's a CRAZY case.  As Todd points out - a rare case of a big switch of advisor on an existing fund
and one that is sitting on gains
its like a worst case perfect storm for capital gains.
Obviously this kind of thing rarely happens with passive vehicles -- vanguard is probably the one i can think of thats done a lot of index swaps over the year.
3:12
but even then, they've been SUPER careful to have long transition periods so these issues get mitigated.
Structurally, of course, something like this can technically happen in any fund -- ETF or otherwise.
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