Masters in Business At The Money: How Big Can Active ETFS Get?
19 snips
Oct 22, 2025 
Dave Nadig, President and Director of Research at ETF.com, shares his expertise on the evolving landscape of active ETFs. He discusses the resurgence of these funds and the challenges of understanding their performance, warning that most active managers tend to underperform. The conversation dives into the benefits and risks of tokenization in ETFs, transparency issues, and untested investment strategies. Nadig emphasizes the need for savvy due diligence when evaluating new products to navigate this complex and sometimes speculative market.
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Active ETFs Are Back — With Selection Risk
- Active ETFs have returned as prominent, manager-driven products after a long passive-dominant era.
- Picking a successful active manager remains hard because most active managers underperform over time.
Don’t Buy Star Power Without Due Diligence
- Avoid assuming active ETFs will beat indexes simply because a well-known manager runs them.
- Do the math: most active managers categorically underperform over time, so evaluate fees and track record carefully.
Semi-Transparent ETFs Are A Compromise
- Semi-transparent ETF structures let issuers reveal partial holdings to the market intermittently.
- That solves manager execution concerns but offers no benefit to ordinary investors who want full visibility.