![]() This isn’t where MEME is reserved-that’s at the New York Stock Exchange-but I’m hoping Marrocco will explain how getting a ticker works. Rob Marrocco is senior director of listings at Cboe Global Markets Inc. If that’s how they view MEME, then anyone looking to secure the ticker may need a new tactic-one that bypasses Hershey. They decided the long-lasting value of the ticker and the investors it might attract outweighed the one-time cash influx. In the end, Hershey and Roundhill passed on the $250,000 offer. “The adviser has a fiduciary duty to the fund, so the adviser has to justify it.” “You need to make sure the fund isn’t going to be out any money by losing this ticker,” Flores says. Issuers have a duty to their investors not to give away the store, so an existing fund’s ticker is not so easy to buy and sell. This is a thornier situation, according to Flores. They approached Roundhill and made the offer for one of their live tickers. The bid it received out of the blue was from a company preparing to list publicly. Having launched in mid-2019, it now oversees about $700 million and has some of the most memorable tickers in the business, including BETZ, NERD and DEEP. Roundhill is also part of the thematic boom. because the ticker wasn’t part of the NYSE pitch. Among the stand-outs he cites is COIN, which drew cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. “Because there’s been so many IPOs and SPACs, many unique or consumer companies, they’ve taken a lot of great tickers,” he says. But Mazza reckons it’s getting more competitive, and not just because of the fund boom. To date no one has tried to buy a live ticker from him, “but I do know there are back-channel conversations about if someone might have a ticker that you think you might want, is there a possible swap,” he says.ĭirexion has been well-placed to surf the thematic wave thanks to products with funky tickers like MOON, WFH and GUSH. “As we’ve seen an increase of retail trading and investors come into the market, there certainly has been greater appetite for firms-including ourselves-to try and gain access to tickers that may fit in the memorable category,” says Dave Mazza, head of product at ETF issuer Direxion. These ETFs, which target hot trends like robotics or electric vehicles, have amassed roughly $165 billion in assets - up from below $50 billion in 2016. Yet this is a niche where fees and distribution take a back seat to visionary ideas and persuasive pitches. “Now that we’re getting into more thematic ETFs where that ticker becomes even more important and recognizable, I think we’re going to see that activity increase.”Īn ETF-ticker gray market, fueled by the thematic investing boom? It seems fanciful, considering the complex cocktail of ingredients that combine to make or break any fund. ![]() “It’s probably still kind of a minority situation,” Flores says. Unsolicited approaches for tickers are likely becoming more common. She describes it as “technically” legal-which is good enough for me-and intriguingly, says it’s not such an unusual request. I explain my MEME plan to her, and ask if it’s feasible. She’s who you call if you want to get your ETF registered, and helped turn the concept behind MEME into the filing that landed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. “The high-frequency ticker-reservation guys.” The gray marketĪt law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Laura Flores specializes in the regulation of investment vehicles. Although I suppose that would create a millisecond risk of someone stealing it. You could agree to a price, I say, and Roundhill can drop the ticker and the buyer can reserve it a second after it does. ETF universe, therefore, a ticker is all-important. To win a slice of the record billions pouring into the saturated $6.7 trillion U.S.
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