Trading volumes have been lighter since Thanksgiving. Some are blaming the confusion over 2023 and what, if any, recession may occur. Others are blaming the World Cup, and indeed many trading desks seem obsessed with watching every game. But beneath the lower volumes has been some strong activity in many exchange-traded funds, as well as inflows. China is still rallying on the reopening headlines, so emerging market ETFs like KraneShares China Internet (KWEB) have seen inflows. The TSLA Bear 1x ETF (TSLS), which gives you the daily inverse performance of Tesla, has seen big inflows since launching in August. This is one of the few successful single stock ETFs. Since October, volumes have exploded as Tesla has moved down on the Twitter deal — it's up 40% since early October. Anything that throws off dividends or cash flows is also hot. Pacer Cash Cows (COWZ), a basket of companies with strong cash flows, has had huge inflows this year, as has the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD), a market-cap-weighted index of 100 dividend-paying US equities. Another big winner this year is the JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPI), currently yielding around 13%, which invests in large-cap U.S. stocks and seeks to provide similar returns as the S & P 500 Index with lower volatility and monthly income. So-called "buffer funds" are also seeing inflows, such as Innovator U.S. Equity Power Buffer ETF (PDEC) which provides buffered losses on the S & P 500 while also capping gains. Leveraged and inverse tech bets are also big. The big winner this year in the inflow sweepstakes has been the ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ) and ), which provides 3x leveraged exposure to the Nasdaq-100, and the ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ (SQQQ), which provides 3x the inverse exposure to the Nasdaq-100, both resetting on a daily basis.
