Private Equity, SPVs and Liquidity Illusions

The ETF industry has never been more powerful — or more crowded. Dave Nadig, President & Director of Research at ETF.com, joins Pierre Daillie and Mike Philbrick for a no-holds-barred conversation on the structural risks building beneath the surface of the world's most successful financial innovation. From a potential flood of mutual fund conversions to single-stock leverage ETFs, prediction market shenanigans, private credit illiquidity traps, tokenization timelines, AI's impact on the investment industry, and the quiet erosion of the ETF's greatest strength — simplicity — this is the ETF conversation the industry isn't having.

⏱ Chapters

00:00 — Introduction: Dave Nadig, President & Director of Research, ETF.com 00:46 — The Mutual Fund-to-ETF Conversion Flood: 5,000 Funds in the Pipeline 03:12 — The Plumbing Stress Test: Market Makers, Lead Market Makers & Capacity Limits 05:40 — Too Many Tickers: When Choice Becomes Paralysis 07:51 — The Case FOR Mutual Funds: Where the Structure Still Wins 10:34 — Private Credit ETFs: Retail Bag-Holding at the End of the Cycle? 13:06 — Private Equity ETFs, SpaceX Shenanigans & Liquidity Illusions 18:02 — ETF Proliferation: More Tickers Than Stocks 19:50 — The K-Shaped ETF Innovation Curve: Institutional Genius vs. Levered Junk 22:26 — Prediction Markets, Kalshi & Single-Counterparty Risk 25:04 — AI in Investment Management: Hype vs. Genuine Edge 27:18 — Tokenization: When Does It Actually Matter for Retail? 29:38 — Atomic Settlement, Blockchain, and the DTCC's Big Project 33:27 — Crypto, Prediction Markets & Where the Money Is Really Going 36:11 — 24/7 Equity Markets: Opportunity or Chaos? 45:25 — The Kitchen Drawer Metaphor: Good Tools vs. Junk Drawer ETFs 48:00 — Covered Call ETFs & the Yield Illusion: Total Return Is the Litmus Test 50:40 — How to Spot Extractive Products vs. Genuine Innovation 54:52 — Why Dave Came Back to ETF.com — and Why He Won't Stay in a Box 01:00:02 — ETF.com 3.0: Content, Pop-Up Events & the ETF Beach House 01:03:02 — The ETF Industry's Obligation: Keeping It From Going Extractive 01:07:13 — Where to Find Dave Nadig: ETF Zoo Podcast, Excess Returns & More

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