Can we define what ESG is?

Your weekly update on top ETF trends

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE FRI, SEP 03, 2021 YOUR WEEKLY UPDATE ON TOP ETF TRENDS A NOTE FROM BOB This will likely be a record year for the IPO market, and the fall season will be chock full of big consumer names going public, including Warby Parker, Fresh Market, Allbirds, Instacart, Chobani, Sweetgreen and Impossible Foods.  Join me Wednesday on ETF Edge at 1:15 PM ET with my guest Kathleen Smith from Renaissance Capital, an advisory firm to IPO investors who also runs the Renaissance Capital IPO ETF (IPO), a basket of the most recent 60 or so IPOs.  She will be joined by Brian Schaeffer, Managing Director at InvestX Capital, which is enabling a marketplace for private securities transactions, allowing employees and shareholders to get liquidity while the company is still private.  We will talk IPOs, SPACs, and direct listings!  ETFedge.cnbc.com   Cathie Wood is launching a new ETF that has a few people scratching their heads.  The brains behind ARK Investment Management plans to launch a Transparency ETF that looks like an attempt at an ESG fund.  Fair enough, but she is tying it to a passive index that seems like it is mostly going to hold big tech names held in her other funds like Apple, Nvidia and Tesla.  Odd for someone who is known as an aggressive stock picker.  Also the index, while it excludes many of the usual suspects like alcohol, gambling and fossil fuels, also excludes banks.  Hm.    August may be a transition month, but inflows into ETFs continue and have passed $600 billion this year, my friend Eric Balchunas from Bloomberg tells us.  We will have $7 trillion in assets under management for ETFs this year.   The SEC is following through on its concerns that ESG funds are in a little too fuzzy around the edges.  There's ongoing examination of firms that are using the ESG label.  At the very least, a lot more disclosure is coming, but that won't settle the debate: can we really define what ESG is, and do we even want to?   Many investors have expressed bafflement about why some relatively high cost ETFs continue to have a large base of assets under management when lower cost equivalent funds are available. Case in point: why hold  iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) at an 0.7% expense when you can hold the equivalent  iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) at 0.11%?  Sumit Roy at ETF.com notes that for many there is a simple reason:  they hold the funds in taxable accounts, have held the funds for a long time, and would have huge capital gains if they switched.     For more analysis and actionable insights, catch me live on Mondays at 1 PM ET on ETF Edge. Bob Pisani @BobPisani KEY STORIES  These ETFs hedge against rising interest rates and volatility. Here's how risky it is to invest Simplicity's strategies use options to shield portfolios from big spikes from interest rate jitters or volatility, co-founder and CEO Paul Kim says. Active traders are seeing their account balances continue to rise A new Schwab report on self-directed brokerage accounts within 401(k) plans indicate that active traders have done well in the past year. Here's how to turn $100 per month into more than $150,000 by the time you retire Investing over the course of decades can be a powerful tool for your money. Here's how to turn $100 per month into more than $150,000 for retirement.     IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Retail traders pour into stocks, ETFs in record buying spree ETF Edge, August 30, 2021 How one ETF provider uses options and derivatives to hedge against downside   Unsubscribe Manage Newsletters Terms of Service Join the CNBC Panel Digital Products Feedback Privacy Policy   © 2021 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBCUniversal. 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis. Data also provided by THOMSON REUTERS