Tuttle Eyes 'ETF Scraps' With Latest Fund Launch

As a gritty ETF issuer with just $325 million under management, Matthew Tuttle recognizes the unrealistic challenge of trying to compete head on with mega-issuers like BlackRock Inc., State Street and the Vanguard Group Inc. But that hasn’t deterred him from chasing gaps of opportunity. 

“Everybody is competing for the scraps of the biggest firms, and if I can find a win-win situation then I’ll do it,” said Tuttle, founder of Tuttle Capital Management. 

Enter, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm’s latest venture that includes a partnership with Toronto, Ontario-based research firm Brendan Wood International, which has produced The Brendan Wood Top Gun ETF (BWTG). 

Launched Nov. 9, BWTG is an actively managed strategy based on Brendan Wood’s research into what top money managers are identifying as prospective investment opportunities. The portfolio of 25 stocks represents the top 2% of companies in the Brendan Wood Shareholder Conviction Universe of more than 1,400 potential investment targets. 

The stocks are chosen based on the ownership convictions of a panel of global investment professionals who collectively oversee more than $60 trillion in equity portfolios. 

ETF for What Money Managers Like 

The fund, which has an expense ratio of 90 basis points, is active, but expected to make only about a half-dozen trades per year, according to Tuttle, who praises the strategy for its forecasting abilities. 

According to Brendan Wood’s data, the strategy has beaten the performance of the broad U.S. equity markets over the past decade with a total return of nearly 1,100% since the start of 2012. 

Tuttle contrasts Brendan Wood, which has been gathering this data since the 1970s, with the common practice of scouring 13-F regulatory filings that report what specific investment managers were holding on a 45-day delay. 

“They’re asking which stocks the investment managers are buying over the next three months,” Tuttle said. “That’s a lot more useful than knowing what Warren Buffet’s biggest position was 45 days ago.” 

The Brendan Wood partnership comes less than a month after Tuttle joined forces with Rex Shares to launch a suite of ETFs offering respectively leveraged long and short exposure to Tesla and Nvidia. 

Since the Oct. 19 launch, the T-REX 2X Long Tesla Daily Target ETF (TSLT) has grown to nearly $11 million, making it Tuttle’s largest fund. 

Another example of how Tuttle pushes the envelope includes the March launch of the Tuttle Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF (SJIM), which bets against stocks favored by CNBC host Jim Cramer. The fund has attracted $3.4 million and has gained 14.8% over the past three months. 

Contact Jeff Benjamin at [email protected] and on X: @BenjiWriter