原文標題：Buffett’s Berkshire Is Being Packaged Into a Leveraged ETF
原文連結：https://reurl.cc/Or2mkA
發布時間：2024-11-13
原文內容：
Warren Buffett created Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Class B shares almost 30
years ago to stymie money managers who sought to split the high-priced
conglomerate’s stock.
One of South Korea’s largest retail brokerages now plans to package the
Class B shares into an exchange-traded fund turbocharged with derivatives,
another move that Buffett might not like.
Kiwoom Securities Co. teamed up with Milwaukee-based Tidal Investments to
form an ETF designed to provide 200% the daily performance of Berkshire,
according to a regulatory filing.
Single-stock ETFs such as this have been sweeping the fund world, using
leverage that amps up the potential returns — and losses — of high-flyers
such as Nvidia Corp. and Tesla Inc. In South Korea, brokerages such as Toss
Securities and Mirae Asset Securities Co. have been seeking to capitalize on
rising demand for US stocks amid sluggish performance by domestic equities.
“Traditionally on the leveraged ETFs, the lion’s share of the interest and
asset flow has been on the more volatile names,” Gavin Filmore, chief
revenue officer for Tidal, said in an interview. “Berkshire is almost the
polar opposite.”
Leveraged ETFs are often meant for active traders who want to bet on a stock’
s performance for no more than a single day, as these funds typically veer
off course when tracking shares over a longer period. The use of derivatives
to juice Berkshire returns might not sit well with Buffett, who once called
them “financial weapons of mass destruction.”
While Buffett’s firm is a well-known name, it remains to be seen whether day
traders will have an appetite to ride a steady stock such as this one with
this type of leveraged strategy. Buffett is known as the ultimate long-term
investor who advises people to own stocks they’d be comfortable holding for
years.
Buffett, 94, and his firm already have a following in South Korea. As of Nov.
8, individual investors in South Korea owned more than $800 million worth of
Berkshire Class A and Class B shares, according to data compiled by the Korea
Securities Depository.
Asian markets “have a penchant for Berkshire,” said Matthew Palazola, an
insurance analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
The ETF listing is not finalized yet and Kiwoom is waiting for the approval
by Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, the country’s financial watchdog,
Kiwoom said in response to a Bloomberg query. Representatives for Berkshire
didn’t reply to a message seeking comment.
Retail investors in South Korea have embraced some of the largest leveraged
ETFs listed in the US. The Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares, a single-stock
ETF for Tesla stock, has taken in $225 million so far this year from South
Korean retail investors, raising their total stake in the ETF to $1.2 billion
as of Nov. 8, according to depository data.
While Kick BRK 2X Long Daily Target, as it’s known, would be the first
Berkshire single-stock ETF in the US, several others trade abroad. Still, they
’ve failed to gain much of a following: Leverage Shares 2x Long Berkshire
Hathaway ETP Securities, which trades on several European exchanges, only has
about $2.3 million of assets.
Kiwoom’s new ETF would buy Berkshire Class B shares and then issue its own
stock to investors, potentially at a much lower price than the $467.36 that
each Class B share sold for as of market close on Monday. To amplify its
exposure to Berkshire’s daily returns, the ETF will enter into swaps with
broker dealers and also trade listed options on the Omaha, Nebraska company’
s B shares.
The Berkshire ETF would be a Kiwoom product that Tidal runs behind the scenes
in exchange for a portion of management fees.
‘Stained Reputation’
Wall Street’s efforts to create an early version of a single-stock fund for
Berkshire shares spurred Buffett to create the company’s Class B shares
almost three decades ago. At the time, Berkshire had only one class of stock
that traded for more than $30,000 a share, and ETFs were in their infancy.
In 1995, Philadelphia politician Sam Katz filed papers to create a unit
investment trust, a fund-like vehicle that buys a fixed portfolio of stocks
and bonds up front and then holds the securities for a set period. He wrote
that the trust would provide “convenient and affordable access to the common
stock of Berkshire Hathaway without the requirement to own full shares.”
Berkshire threatened to put the trust out of business by doing a stock split,
setting up its own trust or creating a second share class, Katz said in an
interview.
Buffett made good on that last threat by issuing Class B shares equal to
1/30th of a Class A share. Investors flocked to the new stock, rendering
trusts such as Katz’s obsolete.
In a 1996 letter to shareholders, Buffett warned that such trusts were “
expense laden” vehicles that brokers would market “en masse to
unsophisticated buyers” in order to earn big commissions. That would have
burdened Berkshire “with both hundreds of thousands of unhappy, indirect
owners (trustholders, that is) and a stained reputation.”
Katz said he doesn’t have any regrets: “How many guys do you know who get
to do battle with Warren Buffett?”
心得/評論：
韓國散戶真的很猛
各種槓桿到現在連波克夏B股也要正2？
但韓國散戶FOMO最後好像都不是什麼好下場 怕.jpg
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