Jason Bottenfield Breaks Down the Next Evolution of ETF Investing

**Nicole** (0:00)
ETF watchlist segment time. Joining me right now, Jason Bottenfield is with me, Wealth Manager, Park Cities Group at Steward Partners. Thank you for being with us. We've seen a record of interest and inflows into ETFs. Let's talk about 2026 and a structural story for ETFs. Tell us a little bit about that.

**Jason Bottenfield** (0:21)
Yeah. No, thanks for having me, Nicole. When you say a structural story, I mean, the ETFs have just been a revolution for many years now, but there's just been a lot of new issuance, and we've just seen record flows into ETFs this year.
We're sitting in the 23 trillion mark on ETFs, and a lot of them have been active. There's been a lot of different derivative ETFs that have come out, and there's risks in those. And I think that a lot of investors are eating them up, but I think they need to understand what they're getting into. But structurally, there's just a big move continued into ETFs as an investing area.

**Nicole** (1:00)
Listen, you talked a lot about active management, and that's gone. Are we saying gone are the days of index funds? No. But popularity for active funds, how do you decipher between them?

**Jason Bottenfield** (1:15)
Yeah. No, it's a good point because commonly, we attribute mutual funds with active management, and a lot of ETFs that are coming out that are active now, I think it's just that flavor that investors are looking for, is not just that traditional indexing. And so potentially, there is an individual in there making some picks that goes counter to the indexes or whatever it may be. There's actually also call writing and option strategy ETFs.
And again, these are different flavors of what's going on inside the ETF world that you want to know exactly what's going on in there and do a little bit more research. But the active side of it, yeah, I mean, indexing is still there, but these kind of satellite strategies and some tactical plays, especially in these markets where we see the ups and the downs, and even commodities and tech, and just across the board, there's just a lot of areas to go into.

**Nicole** (2:13)
Yeah, let's go to that. I mean, we just finished talking about copper and Freeport macron, which in our last segment, which actually is looking at a record close today.
Gold, as you noted, and that's a popular theme for ETFs. Gold for this month is up 14 percent. It's had a nice run back above here, 4600 I'm sorry. Some of your thoughts on the thematic ETFs like gold, and why that may be a good one of interest to folks.

**Jason Bottenfield** (2:41)
Yeah, no. Gold and copper, like you said, have just, copper's blown through just parabolic. But gold in general has done very well coming out of COVID and even before that in the financial recession. But what I hear on the client side, because I'm client facing, is I see a lot of individuals that they may tell you that they're storing gold in their room or in a safety deposit box or something of that nature. But there's also just the risks of holding it, the cost of holding it, the counterparty risks. There's also just a lot of other areas on TV that you see people that may buy into gold. But I don't hear a lot of clients coming to me and saying, hey, can I get it in my portfolio? But they're usually thinking about the physical side. But with exchange traded products, you can actually get into some of these commodities and these metals without having all that other holding it yourself and trying to safekeeping and the cost and the fees.
So it's a real area that I think that a lot of people just don't think about if you want to be tactical and put it in there. But if you also want to just hold it for the long term, you can do it as well. But think about retirement accounts to put those in. That's a better vehicle.

**Nicole** (3:52)
Yeah. Okay. What about energy and you have another tech ETF covered calls focus?

**Jason Bottenfield** (4:00)
Yeah. I think that's one of the areas that's underutilized, is looking at options on ETFs, especially in the tech space where you have a lot of, you have this volatility and these ups and these downs.
The option writing on there is something I just don't hear a lot of people doing. A lot of the people that are on the network here and watching may do it, but there's also a lot of people that just don't think about it. And tech is definitely with the volatility that's in there, it provides some good premiums inside of there. And then just energy, I mean, it's kind of a little bit of a tactical play if you're a little bit upset about the price at the pump, by some of the refiners who go into the energy market, maybe that could just be a little mental hedge for yourself. Yeah.