Trillions

What if an exchange-traded fund could help you quit your job and travel the world? Self-described “dividend nomads” are trying to do just that, using derivative-income ETFs to generate the cash they need to live abroad. The funds can offer eye-popping yields — sometimes well into the double digits — and the category has recently exploded in popularity. But generating that much income comes with tradeoffs, and making the nomad math work can be more complicated than it looks.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber are joined by Bloomberg Money’s personal investing reporter Zijia Song and financial adviser Mark Moberg of Green Ocean Global Advisors. They discuss the rise of derivative-income ETFs and some of the people using them, whom Song recently documented in her story “The ‘Dividend Nomads’ Investing Their Way Out of the 9-to-5.” They explain how funds such as the JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI) and YieldMax COIN Option Income Strategy ETF (CONY) generate their payouts, what investors may sacrifice in exchange for all that income, and the risks of building a lifestyle around them. They also wrestle with a bigger question: How much future financial security is worth trading for the freedom to live a little more now?
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Vanguard and BlackRock have spent years battling for supremacy in the ETF market. But now one of them may finally be pulling away from the other. And that’s just one interesting data point of late. Expiration dates, dip-buying and another pre-IPO frenzy are all making headlines.

On this episode of Trillions, Joel Weber is joined by Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Athanasios Psarofagis and Bloomberg TV markets reporter Isabelle Lee to dig into — as one of the show's recurring episodes — some of the noteworthy recent trends in the ETF industry. They examine the latest chapter in the Godzilla-vs.-King Kong battle between Vanguard and BlackRock, what the “degens” are doing with leveraged semiconductor ETFs, and how ETF investors and issuers are gearing up for Anthropic’s initial public offering.
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The ETF industry is on pace for another record year of launches. But there’s another record within reach: closures. About 250 funds have already been laid to rest in 2026, including leveraged bets that barely survived infancy and funds tied to ESG, the metaverse and cannabis. With about 2,500 products now buried in the ETF Graveyard, launching a fund is clearly no guarantee of longevity.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber — joined by Andre Yapp, a senior ETF research associate with Bloomberg Intelligence, and Todd Sohn, ETF strategist at Baird Strategas — take another tour through the ETF Graveyard. They examine which strategies died out this year, why leveraged ETFs account for so many of the casualties, and which funds closed despite having substantial assets or strong returns. And because some ETF ideas refuse to stay dead, they nominate a few fallen funds that might someday join the “Lazarus list” and get resurrected.
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A new ETF seeded with $2.5 billion from the University of California's investment arm invests 90% in the S&P 500 and 10% in short-term bonds — essentially the same allocation Warren Buffett has recommended for his own family. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s now an exchange-traded product offering pre-IPO exposure to Anthropic — and another ETF that allows for a "highly speculative" bet on the S&P 500.
On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber — joined by Bloomberg TV markets reporter Isabelle Lee — run through the latest ETFs to watch. They discuss the arrival of the State Street SPDR UC Investments 90/10 ETF (UCBG), a European product offering synthetic exposure to private AI giant Anthropic (CLAU), and an options-based ETF from Roundhill designed for investors betting that the S&P 500 will reach 10,000 by 2030 (XX). They also discuss a new ETF combining the S&P 500 with a managed-futures strategy (SPXP).
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In sports, wins and losses determine standings. Soon they could help determine something else: a price. A group of financial firms is trying to turn sports results and statistics into something investors can actually trade. The idea starts with indexes that measure the performance of individual teams, creating the foundation for futures, ETFs and potentially an entirely new asset class built around sports.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Vildana Hajric, a cross-asset editor with Bloomberg News, speak with FutureSports co-founder Leigh Taylforth and Head of Index Services Jodie Gunzberg about the financial infrastructure they’re building behind the new crop of sports ETF filings. They explain how to put a price on a team’s performance, why sports might offer investors something different from stocks and bonds, and how businesses could even use the products to hedge their exposure to wins and losses.
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