Strategas Asset Management, the investment advisory arm of research firm Strategas, has launched its first two ETFs: the Strategas Macro Thematic Opportunities ETF (NYSE Arca: SAMT), and the Strategas Global Policy Opportunities ETF (NYSE Arca: SAGP).
SAMT is an actively managed fund that leverages Strategas’ research-driven approach to drive a holistic thematic rotation strategy, focused on those macro themes around which the Strategas team has the highest conviction. The Fund will invest in three to five such themes at any given time, expressing the portfolio management team’s views through US-listed stocks across market capitalisations which meet certain liquidity parameters.
“Investors have no shortage of choices when it comes single-theme ETFs, but to this point there has been a marked lack of approaches that leverage thematic rotation,” says Jason DeSena Trennert, Chairman and CIO with Strategas Asset Management and Lead Portfolio Manager for the Strategas Macro Thematic Opportunities ETF. “With SAMT, investors have a dynamic new tool that will leverage our latest research and insights around some of the most meaningful economic trends and how they’re shaping and reshaping different parts of the market, with an active rotation component that may potentially make the fund a key all-weather building block in a diversified equity portfolio.”
SAGP is an actively managed global equity fund that combines Strategas’ proprietary super-cyclical “lobbying intensity” framework with the portfolio management team’s recommended asset allocation approach. The result is a global portfolio focused on those public policy initiatives at the U.S. federal government level viewed as having the greatest potential positive impact on corporate profits with tactical tilts toward the most favorable equity sleeves, such as large-cap versus small-cap, domestic versus international, and more.
“Successful lobbying efforts can drive beneficial policy outcomes, giving certain industries and companies operational and strategic benefits that produce meaningful long-term impacts on equity performance,” says Nicholas Bohnsack, CEO of Strategas Asset Management and Portfolio Manager with both SAMT and SAGP.
“However, we currently find ourselves in the most politically volatile period since the end of the US Civil War, with the party in power having changed in seven of the last eight election cycles,” says Dan Clifton, Partner, Head of Policy Research and Lead Portfolio Manager for SAGP. That makes it even more important to identify companies building a long-term public affairs program to withstand and succeed in the constantly changing political environment. That is exactly what we have looked to provide with the launch of SAGP.”
Both ETFs are listed on the NYSE Arca and carry total expense ratios of 0.65 per cent.
The firm writes that the Strategas investment team is comprised of 17 analysts who combined have more than 200 years of experience researching the impact of changes in the macro economy and to public policy on the capital markets. Trennert and Bohnsack are joined in managing SAMT and SAGP by Dan Clifton, Partner & Head of Policy Research with Strategas and Lead PM for SAGP, and other senior team members including Ryan Grabinski, Managing Director; Courtney Rosenberger, Managing Director; and Gerald Hendricks, Director & Senior Portfolio Analyst.
“Taking an active approach with SAMT and SAGP is key for bringing these investment approaches to market in the most robust way and allows us to leverage insights and expertise from across our industry-leading macro research team,” says Trennert. “We’re thrilled to be entering the ETF space with SAMT and SAGP and look forward to telling the stories behind these funds to institutional investors, advisers and more.”
