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The Alternatives Mason: Building Alts Knowledge Brick by Brick | Episode 15 | Alternatives Simplified Featuring Bobbi Ivanova
6 Plays6 months ago
Welcome to The Alternatives Mason: Building Alts Knowledge Brick by Brick. Banrion Capital Management uses technology to help independent advisors scale and educate themselves on alternative investments. Since education is such a big piece of the Banrion mission and business, we are excited to kick off this series to dive into the nits and grits of the alternatives space. Episode 15 "Alternatives Simplified" features Bobbi Ivanova, Managing Director & Investment Strategist with Simplify Asset Management.
Bobbi started her career as a risk manager at Goldman Sachs focusing on OTC FX and Interest rates instruments within the interbank channel. She then pivoted to the asset management arm of Goldman Sachs distributing investment strategies across various institutional investors including consultants, corporates, pension plans, and asset managers. Bobbi was overseeing 30bn in AUM on behalf of Goldman Sachs institutional clients. Afterward, she moved to New Zealand to pursue her MBA degree and was a Business Development Manager for a rapidly growing startup TAMP working closely with financial advisors. Bobbi holds an MBA from the University of Canterbury, a bachelor's degree from International Business School, and is a CFA and CAIA charterholder. Bobbi and her husband spend the weekends with their two boys enjoying the great outdoor activities in Utah.
Connect with Bobbi
Learn More About Simplify Asset Management: Simplify Asset Management
Follow Simplify on 𝕏: @SimplifyAsstMgt
Check out Simplify's YouTube Channel: @SimplifyAssetManagement
Connect with Bobbi on LinkedIn: Bobbi Ivanova
Connect with Bobbi on 𝕏: @ivanovabobbi
Learn More About Banrion: Banrion Capital Management
Follow Brittany on 𝕏: @Brittany_Mason
Follow Banrion on 𝕏: @Banrion_Capital
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: @BanrionCapital
Important Disclosures:
The opinions expressed on the “The Alternative Mason Podcast” are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security.
It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results.
The guests featured on this program are participants on Banrion Capital Management’s platform. As such Banrion may receive payment for their participation as a platform partner.
Any indices referenced for comparison are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. As always please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital; please seek advice from a licensed professional.
Investments are not FDIC-insured, nor are they deposits of or guaranteed by a bank or any other entity, so they may lose value.
Investors should carefully consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. This and other important information is contained in the fund prospectuses and summary pros
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Transcript
Introduction to Alternator's Mason Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Alternator's Mason Podcast with host Brittany Mason, Chief of Staff at Bonner & Capital Management. You'll learn how to build alternative knowledge brick by brick. Bonner & Capital Management uses technology to help independent advisors scale and educate themselves on alternative investments. Since education is such a big piece of what we do, we are excited to kick off the series to dive into the myths and bricks of the alternative space.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello everyone.
Meet Bobby Ivanova: A Trailblazer in Finance
00:00:34
Speaker
It is Brittany Mason back with another episode of the alternative Mason right here from the green couch. I am very excited today because we have a very special guest, Bobby Ivanova. She is the managing director and investment strategist over at Simplify.
00:00:53
Speaker
And we are very excited to have her on the show, especially because, you know, we just don't get enough women here on this episode, you know, or on these episodes. So very excited about this one. A little bit behind Bobby. Let's go into a little bit about her experience before we dig in deep. All right. She has she is a seasoned finance professional with a diverse background in risk management.
00:01:21
Speaker
and asset distribution starting her career at Goldman Sachs. Having overseen $30 billion in assets under management for institutional clients, she transitioned to business development working closely with financial advisors at a startup TAMP.
00:01:35
Speaker
after completing her MBA in New Zealand. She's also a CFA and Kaya charter holder. Bobby brings a wealth of expertise to her roles, balancing her career with family life. And she enjoys spending weekends with her husband and two boys, immersing themselves in the great outdoor activities of Utah. Thank you, Bobby. We're really excited to have you on. How are you today?
Personal Journeys and Financial Literacy
00:02:00
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm doing great. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat.
00:02:04
Speaker
Thank you. So we do things a little differently here on the alternative Mason, I like to really dig into someone's background, you know, and really find out what makes them tick. What was the foundation of them getting started into the finance industry?
00:02:21
Speaker
you know, and what their journey has been. Because as my listeners know, my journey has been so unique into this world. And yeah, we just want to really encourage more financial education for our audience. So first question, what would you say is your earliest introduction or, you know, childhood memory you have in regards to money? Yeah, I would say that probably the
00:02:50
Speaker
early childhood memory that really resonated with me is in Bulgaria, they used to award scholarship for good grades in high school. So that first award that I received, it's almost like your first paycheck as a child without actually working per se, but you're doing school and that's really encouraged. So that's why they would do it. And you get to spend it on anything that you like. So that first feeling of freedom where you actually
00:03:17
Speaker
do that, that was a very impactful moment for me. I did take a lot of finance and econ classes in high school as well. That's fantastic. And so were you just interested in numbers or was that something perhaps, you know, in your household, it was a discussion and you thought, hey, maybe I'll study this.
Why Finance? A Personal Choice
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, so my parents never really pushed me to do a particular field of study.
00:03:48
Speaker
For them, it actually was important that I pick and I do what I would like to do. And then also, I think a little bit of a mindset of you can do anything you want to do, basically. So it was more like open like that. And I've always been good with numbers. So like finance naturally kind of spoke to me because of strong math backgrounds. I did at one point wanted to be a nurse.
00:04:12
Speaker
But I figure I'm safer with numbers because nobody dies in your hands. That was the emotional problem of that profession. But I kind of stuck to the numbers. It was just easier, something that I was drawn naturally to. It's a universal language, you know?
00:04:29
Speaker
So, but that's fantastic. I mean, scholarships for high school students to get good grades. Wow. I feel like if we implemented that in the US, we might see a little improvement in the education system here. You know, would you say Bulgaria had a, cause that's where you grew up. Would you say Bulgaria has a strong emphasis on financial education as a whole?
00:04:57
Speaker
I'd probably say not as much as what I've seen in the US, at least probably not in those eighties and nineties. It was just a slightly different world then, but always had had strong emphasis on math. Like we used to do like math Olympic games, which were like kind of interesting things. If you kind of qualify and you go and get to compete on math with other kids across the country. So different.
00:05:23
Speaker
It's great that they had already figured out good incentives to encourage students to study. So your first job was with Goldman Sachs. Correct.
Experiences and Lessons from Goldman Sachs
00:05:38
Speaker
That's quite a big name to work for for your first job. Yeah, so I started in the Salt Lake City office here in Utah after school.
00:05:51
Speaker
analyst on the desk, I was working on the FX over the counter derivatives, kind of in the risk management capacity, we'll go and make sure that the trades are properly. And honestly, this was so stressful, even with knowledge and Econ and finance, it was just a very different world, very overwhelming. It's like, come on, who knows what's a binomial double knockout trade? I didn't know. And we
00:06:18
Speaker
So there was a lot of coaching, a lot of training, but still very intense. It's an amount of work and the type of work you do. So lots of pressure. I was definitely going to throw in, in there, learn quickly. So what was that? You either learn this one or you drown. So it was definitely an interesting experience to start a finance career.
00:06:43
Speaker
And I'm just curious, you know, because like I said, it is so rare that we get women on my podcast. So I've been particularly excited about this episode with you. Would you say, did you have quite a few male counterparts at Goldman Sachs? Was it predominantly male while you were there?
Gender Diversity in Finance: Challenges and Solutions
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. Actually the animalist class was pretty well mixed. I wouldn't say that it's 50-50, but there were a lot of other female analysts on desk. It seems like later on that kind of deviates a little bit and you end up having a little bit more male VPs and MDs, but ultimately actually my first boss there was also a female.
00:07:27
Speaker
That's great. Awesome. That's fantastic. So, well, what was, what would you say was your biggest lesson in that role that you took away working for Goldman? Well, you learned a lot, but I think one of the biggest thing and the takeaway that I took was like the pressure that I kind of was putting on myself to begin with.
00:07:54
Speaker
Like you can ask for help. At first I was, I just thought that if something was given to me, I have to complete it regardless of what happens in my outside world or anything else where that matters. So I did, I think that was a lesson I learned that if something has happened, even though I've, let's say I promised to do a finish something by X date, there's always extraneous factors that happen and I should be able to ask for help and raise my hand.
00:08:23
Speaker
At first I just didn't do that. Like I just thought that if this work was given to me, I had to do it regardless of if the world's on fire or not. So you do learn, uh, that was like a main takeaway for me, but also like, I don't know, prioritization, working in teams and other things. Like it's a, the big learning curve for sure. That's great. Yeah. The importance of using your voice and speaking up. There's no silly question, you know?
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, we kind of had a rule actually rule was there was no stupid questions the first six months. So there were stupid questions after the six months, but not before. And the reason being is it was really promoting if you don't understand something, cause there's a lot of things you are not going to understand to begin with, you have to raise your hand and ask because then it's just multiplies the problem. If you don't understand, you get deeper into what you're doing and potentially making a mistakes.
00:09:24
Speaker
Because if you make mistakes and you confirm a trade that's been booked in correctly, that can cost and be like a six figure hit on the balance sheet. It was quite intense from that perspective. Well, you have a very international and diverse background. How do you feel that has given you an extra edge in your approach?
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the main takeaway. I would say it's just having an open mindset because you can see like culturally you live in different places. Things are done one way versus another, but it's not about what's right. It's about being open that there's not just one way to do a thing and just having that mindset towards any task you take. You just kind of think outside of the box a little bit, maybe bring different ways and experience into that so that
00:10:17
Speaker
kind of has always helped me I think throughout my career. Yeah.
00:10:23
Speaker
Do you feel that the financial industry could benefit from perhaps a more diverse range of voices and perspectives, including women? I know you said in your first job, there was actually quite a few women, but you don't always find that, especially the further along you get in your career. And it predominantly still is a male-dominated industry.
Balancing Career and Family: A Personal Approach
00:10:49
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:10:51
Speaker
I mean, bottom line, when you think about investing and generally speaking, if everyone had the same mindset and we all invested in the same things, that's like a recipe for a bubble. So like the fact that people think different ways, like females tend to actually, when you think about more safety in their investment, they're a little bit less aggressive. Generally, of course, there is difference between people, but like having someone to think differently in how they invest
00:11:18
Speaker
and put their money to work, of course it's going to make a difference and the more diverse the better. Yeah. How could we uplift more diverse voices? In what ways can we do that? So on the women's side, I would say when you, and this is something that I mentioned earlier, how even at Goldman, we started pretty even. And then as women get to an older age when they actually start having children, then they kind of leave the workforce
00:11:48
Speaker
And then we have the ratio of VPs and MDs that like kind of deteriorates from that perspective. I feel that if we had more flexibility for younger mothers, let's say the part time is a more flexible arrangement as a working from home, they actually could go through that process with young children without leaving the workspace and having to reenter it a few years back. So if we had a little bit more flexibility to
00:12:16
Speaker
kind of tailored to the different needs because ultimately you have a newborn baby. Maybe you don't want to work 40 hours, but you could do 20 hours a week without exiting the workspace. So I'm sure there's plenty of things we can do. And post COVID, I feel there is some more flexibility coming. So hopefully that will bring more females in the workforce. Yeah, I agree. I think with COVID we've realized we don't have to be in an office. I know there's a big push.
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, for everyone to go back into, you know, an, an office, but a lot of the time we can do the same sorts of things, you know, from home, if we have wifi and our laptop and, you know, and everything. And I know you're a mother and you have two children. How was that? Like, what was that like for you about, you know, figuring out that balance and navigating that, what advice do you have for other women, you know, that are in the industry and perhaps maybe want to start a family? Yeah.
00:13:11
Speaker
We joke internally, but it's not a work-life balance. It's a work-life team. Because ultimately, it's you and your partner, your husband. It's not just me raising two kids, right? And throughout our life, we actually have different phases of our life where I have been taking care of more the kids. And there's been times where my husband's been taking care of the kids. When they were in little, I actually did take about five years off and I was a stay-home mom.
00:13:40
Speaker
And that was the right decision for me at the time. I wanted to do it. I felt really fulfilled. So afterwards when I excited everything backwards, it's just how I go sometimes. After I graduated school and started my first job, our kids were little and then I had the more demanding job. So my husband actually was very flexible getting a less demanding job because I had the more demanding job at the time. And he became more of the
00:14:06
Speaker
primary caregiver, but like just even that concept that we can kind of switch roles. It's like, I feel some people are like, what? You husband did what? I was like, why wouldn't he? He is a parent just as much as I am. And we just have that flexibility in our household, including the rules of who gets home first is the person that cooks dinner. So, and that's different. It could be different every day, right? And there's been months that I didn't cook.
00:14:35
Speaker
and there's been the other way around. So it's just, I guess being flexible and working with your partner and asking for help when you need it. Yeah. Yeah. Like we said, there's no, you should ask for help if you need it in any situation, personal or professional. So, you know, what about, I'm sorry, let's see the, you know, the,
00:15:01
Speaker
women are said to be better investors, you know, because we're more conservative, perhaps with the way we invest. And what other reasons do you feel, you know, having the woman's perspective is such an asset to a company?
Women as Investors and Leaders
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, I would say just stress the fact that women, as you were saying, they're investors, but like the social intelligence of things, we just tend to do better and
00:15:30
Speaker
like reading people, like just hire emotional IQ here. And bottom line is like in any industry, like particularly client facing roles, finance or non-finance related, people are people. Psychology still works the same way. So being able to like empathetic, being able to relate to people, build good relationships, those are transferable skills regardless of what industry you're in. I think
00:15:58
Speaker
Just in finance, we just need a little more representations of females. So other females are like, oh, she can do that. So I could probably do that job too. Because you don't stereotype all being an investment strategist for the male. This is just a main job. A female could perfectly do that as well. But I think the emotional intelligence really helps. Because in any field, you still end up dealing with people, building relationships with people. So this is where additional qualities can shine.
00:16:30
Speaker
Do you feel, is there a situation in your career where you perhaps had a setback?
Career Setbacks and Adaptability
00:16:40
Speaker
You know, maybe you dealt with failure in some capacity. What lessons did you learn from that? Oh, sure. There's always failureism as part of learning. Like even when we actually, when we moved to New Zealand to do my MBA,
00:17:01
Speaker
we kind of failed to stay there permanently. There was a lot of reason for that. Ultimately, that was right before COVID. There were different times, but ultimately you take back, you learn from that experience, because you're like completely immersed into a different culture, working with different people, being also flexible to adjust to their culture, because in New Zealand, they're very laid back. I feel almost like as an American, we are like culturally, we're like, we want to get things down.
00:17:29
Speaker
And they go there with that attitude. Like they don't do things like that. Everything is going to be slow. It's going to happen eventually. But you actually learn through the process because you can't change who they are. You kind of learn to adapt from that. And even though that kind of experience didn't translate for us staying there full time, I still learned a lot, brought a lot of those skills back when they moved back to America. Just being flexible with how different culture in that case relate to day-to-day work.
00:18:00
Speaker
flexible, being adaptable, being able to, you know, land on your, being able to have the confidence to just, you know, you're going to land on your feet. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, I think, and that's like, I guess, COVID experience, but that was a huge thing about adaptability, right? People had to completely shift mindset, how things were done, adapt super fast as well. So if it wasn't COVID, how long would it have taken
00:18:28
Speaker
to actually move to flexible and online environment that exists today. It probably would have been years, and we somehow did it over a few weeks. So like that, I felt without having that open mindset that was easier, because I can see some of my colleagues there, some of the older folks, it was a lot harder for them to switch and change that mindset of doing things differently. Do you have any advice for your younger self?
00:18:56
Speaker
You know, maybe, you know, there's someone who's just starting out. Yeah. Young yourself. Something that I mentioned earlier, but I really want to reiterate that of how important was not be kind to yourself, be nice to yourself. This is like you as starting out from school, you're not going to know it all. You're not going to have the experience. So meaning ask for help. Don't, don't stress yourself too much.
00:19:24
Speaker
I, uh, funny example, but in my first job and I love coffee, I'm a big coffee drinker. I think I was so stressed going into work because you go in the morning and you tell, we will have London queue open at the same time as new queue, meaning both of those straightings are open. I was so stressed. I will make myself lavender tea. I like, I, for that period of my life, I didn't even drink coffee because I had a, I was, I feel like it was so stressed that I'm going to make a mistake or something that I didn't.
00:19:53
Speaker
Yeah, it was just, it was a lot. And like, I just, and I feel like I was putting that pressure on myself because I was thinking regardless of the new or not, this is the expectation. And I have to know all of that. I have to be able to do all of that work, no mistakes. And I was just putting pressure on myself and like, obviously like a huge imposter send them true too, like, which.
00:20:18
Speaker
I don't know, women tend to do that. It's like, are you actually good enough for the opportunity that you are given and stressing about it? So I think like, just be kind to yourself. And if you don't know, ask the question, raise your hand, ask for help. Don't necessarily pressure yourself as much that you will, because that will happen. It's just not going to happen on day one as you start your first job. I love that.
00:20:44
Speaker
some of the best piece of advice that I was actually ever given. And I've held onto this for so many years. I think I was 17 when I heard this. I used to get very nervous. And like you said, that imposter syndrome, I don't know if I am meant to be here. Am I good enough? And I was a performer. So it would really be before I was going on stage. And I remember somebody,
00:21:11
Speaker
you know, grab me right before I was physically shaking. And someone grabbed me from behind stage and was like, you know, you're you're okay. You just have to remind yourself you've done all the work. You've done all the work. You know what you need to do. You're ready. And this these jitters those butterflies in your stomach and
00:21:35
Speaker
All of that is just your body telling you you're ready for this moment. So that's kind of always stuck with me, you know? So just reminding myself, you know what? As long as I've done the work, I've prepared for this, it's all going to be okay. You know, I'm ready for this moment. I'm ready for this job. I'm ready for this opportunity. So. Love it. I love that. The jitters are just your body telling you you're ready.
00:22:01
Speaker
I love that. Yes, yes. So what about, you know, we talked a lot about, you know, in finance, it seems like for outsiders, it could be so black and white, but really a lot of it is the relationships we're building with our clients.
Psychological Motivations Behind Financial Decisions
00:22:18
Speaker
And, you know, also human behavior, studying human behavior, why we make the decisions we do and
00:22:26
Speaker
You know, there's herd mentality we always talk about when it comes to investing. What are some other human behaviors you feel that we fall trapped to? Yeah, I think really say I did a lot. I did a project for my MBA and it was psychology of money type of project. So really understanding how people, how do you view money and what's, what's the why behind money? It's not the risk to learns, which is very different.
00:22:56
Speaker
That's often different and you will see like in financial planning that gets captured, right? All your risk tolerance is X or Y and this is what you can afford. What type of volatility your portfolio goes on versus what your money, I always call it money personality, but what's your why behind money? Is it security? Like for some people that's security, for some people that's achievement is a freedom.
00:23:22
Speaker
So just saying that you can think about it out loud, that's a very different way of what is the why of money for you? Why do you need money? What's the purpose? So even looking at a deeper level like that, I know it's a little philosophical here, but I think putting that in perspective. So in a financial advisor role, I would say probably be a bit of a bigger difference when you think from an investment management standpoint, because portfolio managers supposedly shouldn't have
00:23:52
Speaker
the why behind how they invest money, even though obviously there's always biases, but it's very important for people to understand that. And as you were mentioning, uh, on a relationship basis and what's the why, cause there, there is a why you just have to figure that out. What is your best advice to figure that out? Do you have any exercises or how you, you know, how would you work with someone to, to really figure that out so you can be prepared for,
00:24:20
Speaker
you know, creating the best strategies that's catered to them. Yeah, I used to, part of the project that I did, we would like, we would do like a questionnaire where we ask people certain questions like, but what's the wide behind money or like give them choices. What would you choose? I don't know, go on a vacation. So are you more towards experience or would you say for college education for your kids or other things? So seeing over and over again, which,
00:24:49
Speaker
one of those money characteristic is a predominant one for them. So, but ultimately it's open discussion. It's not like a blank boilerplate questions that everybody fits into a box. But if you actually ask people, we had to do interviews with investors as well. And you actually asked the right question. I had someone down to tears one of the interviews because they're like, I feel so much pressure because they had to take care of older parents that didn't
00:25:19
Speaker
have the security that they should have, that they should be taking care of them as well. And security was such a strong pronoun feature and their profile was crazy. But I think it's, again, psychology, asking the question, having that conversation, listening, because that's a part of the active listening as well as like listening and figuring out, putting your pieces together.
00:25:43
Speaker
That's fantastic. What about the SEC's rule change?
Impact of SEC Rule Change on ETFs
00:25:50
Speaker
I know that there was a change. And how do you feel that this has transformed access to alternative strategies through ETFs? Yeah. So ultimately, this is actually how Simplify got started. So in 2020, SEC changed the rules of how derivatives are used in 1940, so mutual funds and ETFs.
00:26:12
Speaker
So versus before where you had to get exemption relief to use derivatives, now they're pretty fine. There is a bar base that you have to follow. And it actually makes having like hedge fund type strategy, anything that like think about your long short or managed futures, anything that uses leverage within the ETF wrapper a lot easier, also very regulated. So we, we have the, what's the value at risk bounds that we have to follow, but then
00:26:41
Speaker
We can pretty much use any listed derivatives or as well as over-the-counter derivatives in order to provide investors in the very broader term, anyone, really, because you can buy one share. And what's one share is like, whatever, 20, 30, $50 versus before some of those more complex strategies because they were not available in the liquid version. You will have minimums, performance fees, higher fees as well, illiquidity,
00:27:12
Speaker
So that has kind of all changed. And that's probably why you guys will see explosion in the ETF space on the active side and the lateral derivatives being used. That's amazing. How do you see that evolving from where it is now? Yeah. So let's say like that first step that in 2020, and this is actually how we got started as I mentioned, was like, now you can have those type of derivative instruments in the ETF.
00:27:41
Speaker
The second layer of that is the educational piece. And I know you guys do a lot on education as well, but ultimately, people give me hard time all the time. You guys are simplified, but your strategies are not simple. And I just keep telling them, we simplify the access, not the strategy. And that's the second piece of the adoption of alternative strategy has to do with education. It's within our suite of products that we offer, we have a lot of complex strategies.
00:28:11
Speaker
For that reason, we write a lot of white papers, a lot of videos, a lot of short videos actually would notice investors with attention span. They comprehend a lot better watching a short video. Obviously there's a lot of white papers as well, but just providing different ways for people to absorb the information and to learn and help educate. I think it's kind of the next phase. As people get more education, obviously the adoption of alternatives is going to continue to go higher.
00:28:41
Speaker
What are some of your favorite places for alternative education?
Simplify and Bonner & Capital Management: Education and Innovation
00:28:46
Speaker
Simplify. Plug the plug here. Now, that was a joke. Obviously, simplify is a place, because we do focus mainly on alternative strategies. I love what you guys are starting to do at Bannering Capital as well, because you do have a lot of big focus on education. Ultimately, though, when you think about the age we live, there's endless information.
00:29:10
Speaker
Is it Twitter? I guess X now. Even like when you think all the Twitter spaces X spaces, what do they call X spaces now? And like all of this hedge funds or other managers that you can connect to there and like chat with somebody. Obviously podcast, sub-stack now, live streaming news. Like I think even my, my dog listens to Bloomberg regularly. So.
00:29:39
Speaker
I don't know if she might be able to give some financial advice to you and everything you just listen to. Put her to work and have her start paying her way. Yeah, so a lot of educational sources now, absolutely. How does simplify those complex alternative investments? I know you said that.
00:30:07
Speaker
you just simplified the access and not so much the strategy. So in what ways are you simplifying that access? So I would say, obviously, the access is easy now because they're publicly listed. So easy for anyone to go and buy even one share if they wanted to. But I really wanted to head on the second part with the education as well as access to your portfolio management team.
00:30:37
Speaker
Ultimately, we do just a lot where we'll have calls and we'll bring our chief strategist, for example, Mike Gray, who's very vocal with social media and other places. And we'll bring him to a client call and people are starstruck. And it's kind of very interesting that we actually have investors have access to our very senior team members as well. Is it either getting deeper into the strategy or even like picking their brain on
00:31:03
Speaker
What do you think is happening with the economy? What's happening with rates? So we have a lot of interesting discussions in the company, a lot of different views, which is actually really good of having opposing and different views as well on say heart-lending, soft-lending, no-landing. So yeah. How are you, what ways do you like to stay up to date on industry trends? Yeah.
00:31:31
Speaker
I think it's almost, sometimes it's too hard to be, to get unplugged for everything that's, that's going on. Cause you constantly, there is a, is a Twitter is a live feeds of listening to what's happening in news. Is it like our internal, you should see our internal chat. It goes, it goes bananas when like there was a big event or CPF rent or fat rate decision. It's just insane. Cause like everybody's contributing, putting their thoughts in.
00:32:00
Speaker
Like is it reading like Substack on a weekend, whatever that is. Like there's just, there's a lot of, lot of sources. And I think just, I kind of diversify a little bit through listening cause I love to hear opposing views. Cause like I sometimes could agree to one side, but I'm like, oh, I actually see some things on the other side as well. So versus that's kind of that open mindset that I mentioned earlier, like have that open mindset and listen to opposing view.
00:32:29
Speaker
with investing what's going to happen. Because we ultimately, no one has a crystal ball. But listening and educating yourself on what are the options and where we are in the cycle or how that's transferring to investments, I think is super helpful.
Simplify's Growth and Future Plans
00:32:44
Speaker
Do you have any favorite ETF alternatives? Simplify, obviously. I obviously have to mention us, but we know we
00:32:58
Speaker
Ultimately, there's a lot in the space. What we focus on on the alternative side is when you think about options and derivatives within ETFs, there's different purpose for it. So you can use options for income. You can use options to hedge. You can use options for speculation. You can use options for diversification, right? So there's all of these different type of instruments that can help you
00:33:26
Speaker
provide different exposure in your portfolio. So what we do, and it's actually across the board, because we do optional overlays. We do equity long short, for example, or managed futures, which tend to be a little bit more defensive strategies. We have quant strategies. We have option income strategies that do really well as well. So kind of across the board there, but everything is liquid publicly traded. And we also try to have very competitive fees.
00:33:58
Speaker
Is there anything you want to share that simplifies working on any upcoming, uh, anything up and coming with you guys you'd like to talk about? Sure. So we, uh, as I mentioned, we're constantly pushing and trying to bring innovative products. So probably we'll keep it to what's actually listed versus.
00:34:20
Speaker
Uh, some things that we're currently working on. Um, but ultimately right now we manage, uh, about 4.1 billion across 26 strategies. We're definitely working on building our alternative strategies. So basically local relations strategies, absolute return tech strategies, but a lot of our current offerings are within the income space. I mean, like how attractive is to get about 9% yield with no credit or duration risk.
00:34:50
Speaker
So we definitely see a lot of investors, particularly in the sideways markets or like even right now that are not sure. Maybe I don't know the actual equity fear has gripped in because the equity market's been ripping. Even though today we did have a little bit, but ultimately the need for income is always there. And it's just a different way for investors to get that exposure.
00:35:14
Speaker
And then as a platform, we're just going to continue to build. I think we probably have another six, seven funds coming this year, a lot in the liquid out space, just providing diversification for portfolios. Fantastic. Lots of growth, lots of growth.
00:35:32
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for taking the time, Bobby. It was wonderful to get to know you better and your journey into this space and everything that Simplify has going on. Really excited to have you on. Thank you everyone who has tuned into this episode. I hope you learned something and definitely be on the lookout for what Simplify has going on.
00:35:54
Speaker
And we are really excited to join forces with you. So thank you so much again. And everyone, I will see you next time right here on the green couch. Thank you.
00:36:12
Speaker
The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing.
00:36:32
Speaker
Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee to see the results. An indices reference for comparisons are unmanaged and cannot be invested into the reference. As always, please remember, investment involves risk and possible loss of tackle. Please seek advice from a licensed professional.