Markets hate uncertainty — unless, it turns out, they don’t. Under US President Donald Trump, investors have endured tariff scares, geopolitical flare-ups and a steady drumbeat of headline-driven panic. Yet stocks keep climbing; April, in particular, was a blockbuster. Maybe the best way to understand this market is to stop trying to make sense of it.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Athanasios Psarofagis about what ETF data actually says about investing during a Trump presidency. His grab bag of stats — March is cursed, Thursdays are rough and some of the biggest gains happen while you sleep — paints a picture of a market behaving very differently under pressure. Together, they unpack why it feels more volatile than ever and explore why the investors who come out ahead are often the ones who do the least.

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Every day, a handful of new exchange-traded funds come to market. Some rocket to instant glory. Others take their time, building assets month after month, year after year. And more than a few quietly disappear into oblivion.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber debut a new monthly segment that sifts through the flood of launches to pick out three ETFs worth watching. Whether the funds are potential hits, future mainstays or squarely in the “good luck with that” camp, the goal is to figure out what distinguishes them — and how they might help (or hurt) investors. Isabelle Lee, a cross-asset reporter for Bloomberg News, joins to discuss a late Bitcoin arrival, a rare launch and an expensive swing at value investing.

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For a while, the artificial intelligence trade was almost comically simple: just buy Nvidia. But as the buildout of massive data centers accelerates, and the AI models running on them get more complex, some long-overlooked parts of the semiconductor world are suddenly back in view. One of the most important: memory. Dominated by a small group of global giants—SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron among them—it’s a corner of the market that’s been hard for investors to access in a targeted way. Until now.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Bloomberg Intelligence semiconductor analyst Jake Silverman to unpack the explosive debut of the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), which pulled in $1 billion in just 10 days. They break down why this fund could become one of the most successful thematic exchange-traded funds ever, what actually makes memory different from other chips, and why—despite its critical role in AI—it still trades a lot like a commodity.

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Just when it feels like ETFs have done it all, along comes some filings that push the frontier. A trio of issuers wants to launch funds tied to prediction markets -- letting investors wager, from their brokerage accounts, on outcomes like which political party will control the White House or Congress. But how would these ETFs actually work? What else might get packaged this way? And will regulators ever sign off?

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber interview Matt Hougan, CIO of Bitwise and one of the filers, about why prediction market ETFs might make sense, how they’d work, and whether this is the start of a much bigger wave of event-based ETF investing.

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With each passing year, ETFs pull in trillions of dollars while mutual funds steadily bleed assets. And yet, mutual funds still hold more money overall. Now, a long-standing wall between the two may finally be coming down. Dimensional Fund Advisors has launched the first-ever ETF share class of an existing mutual fund, a structure made possible by the expiration of Vanguard’s once-protective patent.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Joel Schneider, Dimensional’s deputy head of portfolio management for North America, and Katie Greifeld of Bloomberg News. They discuss why Dimensional volunteered to be the guinea pig, why it chose its 45-year-old US Micro Cap Portfolio (ticker: DFMC), and whether this hybrid structure could reshape how trillions of dollars are invested.

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As the US and Israel's attack of Iran has reminded the world, oil remains as integral as ever to the global economy. But the ETFs for investing in crude come with some caveats—and are a big reason why Bloomberg Intelligence introduced its traffic-light system.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Bloomberg Intelligence's James Seyffart, an ETF analyst, and Vincent Piazza, a senior energy analyst. They discuss Piazza's "delay, disruption and destruction" outlook; how the United States Oil Fund (USO) came back from the dead; and what to know about other noteworthy energy ETFs such as XLE, CRAK and even BWET.

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The Freedom 100 Emerging Markets ETF (FRDM) is having a moment. Launched seven years ago as a way to filter out autocratic emerging market countries and invest more in ones that have more freedom, it took a while to get going but it hasn't recently caught fire with a five year return of over 100%, which is 5x better than the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and even more than the Nasdaq 100.

On this episode of Trillions Joel and Eric speak with Perth Tolle, founder at Life + Liberty Indexes and the creator of FRDM, about the ETF's methodology, her experience growing up in China, how her life has changed with all the recent success and comparing and contrasting the US' freedom score with other developed countries.

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Gold and silver exchange-traded funds just experienced eye-popping trading volumes, with sharp price swings that drew in speculators chasing the momentum. The frenzy has cooled a bit, but the underlying forces haven’t disappeared. So what’s really behind the surge in precious metals—and is this just a tactical trade, or something more durable?

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with John Ciampaglia, chief executive of Sprott Asset Management, which manages gold, silver and uranium ETFs among other metals strategies. They discuss the debasement trade, what else is fueling gold’s rally, how gold compares with Bitcoin, what’s driving moves in silver and other metals and how Sprott’s uranium miners ETF generated a 450% return over the past six years.

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Cathie Wood is best known for exchange-traded funds, especially her flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK). But ARK also runs a less familiar product: the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX), an interval fund that holds stakes in private companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic—firms expected to make a splash when they go public, perhaps as soon as this year. The fund has quietly become one of the few active strategies to outperform the Nasdaq 100, yet it still manages only about $500 million in assets and comes with caveats typical of interval funds (namely illiquidity).

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Wood, Brett Winton and Charles Roberts—the fund’s three portfolio managers—about how they decide which private companies to invest in, how they value assets that don’t trade publicly and whether some of these holdings could eventually find their way into ARK’s ETFs. They also discuss the structural challenges of gaining private-market exposure through ETFs and how issuers and investors are navigating those limits.

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Venezuela bonds were up 100% even before the US ousted President Nicolás Maduro. Then they went up another 30%. And one actively-managed exchange-traded fund was positioned perfectly after buying the bonds in 2025.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber speak with Jim Craige, portfolio manager of the Virtus Stone Harbor Emerging Markets High Yield Bond ETF ($VEMY), and Damian Sassower, who oversees emerging markets fixed income for Bloomberg Intelligence. They discuss why Venezuela bonds are surging, how Stone Harbor gained exposure, Craig's overall investing strategy, and how a restructuring might work. They also take a brief tour of VEMY’s other holdings, including countries such as Lebanon and Ecuador that have also seen increased returns.

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To kick off the new year, Bloomberg Intelligence has its annual list of ETFs for your stocking-shaped portfolio. While these aren't buy or sell market predictions, the funds are worthy of your watchlist as they may help investors tap into or navigate important themes. And you never know, a few of them could even have a breakout moment you'll find yourself humble-bragging about.

On this episode of Trillions, Eric Balchunas and Joel Weber are joined by Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Athanasios Psarofagis and James Seyffart, who helped write the team's annual report. The episode features 16 ETFs, including the tickers BINC, XOVR, MSOS, BUFB, UFOD, OTGL, VXUS, SBIL, RSST, SPYM, BOXX, GRFT, ITB, PXUI, PCLN and LRND.

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