BlackRock Debuts Umbrella Thematic ETF

The world’s largest ETF issuer is launching an actively managed fund that aims to buy into the highest-potential growth themes in investing.

The BlackRock Future U.S. Themes ETF (BTHM) debuted on the NYSE Arca on Thursday with an expense ratio of 0.60%.

BTHM is BlackRock’s effort to blend exposure to structural “megatrends” it sees maturing to prominence over the next five to 10 years with alpha generated from shorter-term interest in “emerging” themes. The portfolio managers will use algorithmic strategies to identify signals in flows, sentiment and company valuations for rotating in and out of emerging themes.

Jeff Spiegel, BlackRock’s U.S. head of megatrends, said the fund will aim to be 75% invested in its structural megatrends and 25% in rotating emerging themes over the course of an average quarter.

He believes BTHM is an option for those who want to find outperformance versus only holding a basket of single-theme ETFs.

“BTHM becomes very much a do-it-for-me process across all five of the megatrends for an investor who thinks there’s alpha to be derived by rotating between these themes,” Spiegel said.

On debut, just over 27% of BTHM’s holdings are concentrated in Microsoft, Apple and two classes of Alphabet stock.

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