FidelityConnects: The ETF roundup with Étienne Joncas-Bouchard

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Hello, and welcome to Fidelity Connects.

 

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I'm Rory Poole. Canada's ETF industry continues to evolve

 

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and over the past month we've seen strong interest in the international trade

 

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and equities, highlighting a growing appetite for global diversification.

 

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In particular, there's been a notable rise in active ETFs with

 

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investors increasingly drawn to their flexibility and potential for

 

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outperformance. Recent market activity, including a rally in U.S.

 

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equities, has sparked conversations around concentration risk and portfolio

 

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construction. Joining me today to unpack what's driving

 

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ETF flows, how Fidelity is adapting, and what investors

 

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should be watching in the months ahead is Étienne Joncas-Bouchard,

 

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Fidelity's Director of ETF and Alternative Strategy.

 

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As always, please feel free to submit your questions in the Q&A box.

 

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We'll try and get to as many of them as we can.

 

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Étienne, welcome, great to have you with us today.

 

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Great to have you with us as well.

 

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I was going to say I'm welcoming you but I actually feel like the guest today.

 

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You're the regular on here coming on once a month and doing this type of

 

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thing.

 

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And you're in Montreal.

 

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I am in Montreal.

 

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I think the best place probably for us to start, as I think you do with most of

 

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your shows, is just talking a little bit about what's going on within the

 

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industry, what are you seeing out there and then maybe we can delve into

 

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some specifics.

 

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Absolutely. You kind of touched on it in your introduction, obviously.

 

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It's been a very, very strong year for the Canadian ETF industry.

 

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We're at close to $67 billion in net new assets coming

 

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into the industry which is well on pace for a record year, which

 

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was actually set last year.

 

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I think I've mentioned that maybe every month so far this year but we're

 

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tracking and we're staying on track.

 

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Some of the key themes that we've identified in the past have somewhat

 

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continued and even to a certain extent accelerated.

 

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You mentioned equities being in favour relative to fixed income.

 

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That's accelerated in July.

 

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There's only $2 billion that came in in July into

 

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fixed income ETFs versus about 7 or so for equities,

 

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a bit less than that if you include multi-asset.

 

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Nonetheless, it's really equities have been driving the show.

 

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International equities have been in demand for a while now.

 

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We saw, obviously, performance in those markets really take an uptick so far

 

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this year.

 

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Yes, there's been the U.S. equity rally since post kind of the 90-day tariff

 

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pause, especially led by concentration, you mentioned that also,

 

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a lot of the mega-cap tech names leading the way.

 

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There has been an appetite coming back for U.S. equities just kind of wanting

 

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to hang yourself onto that risk-on trade but international equities continue

 

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to be very popular, with a small caveat.

 

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In those numbers, if we throw up slide 1 for audience,

 

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if you see that $18.9 billion that have come in so far this year into

 

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international equity ETFs a lot of that is also global ETFs.

 

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Global falls under international because of the international

 

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exposure but I'd say the race would be a bit tighter if we branched

 

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it out separately and have global as its own because, especially, so far this

 

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summer, a lot of demand may be moving from a pure 100%

 

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equity play. Maybe let me go to a global where there's maybe 25%, 30%

 

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international exposure in the underlying ETFs.

 

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So those are some of the main trends.

 

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Multi-asset continues to be popular alternatives, which you know very well,

 

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obviously, have upticked as well this summer.

 

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There I will point out it's

 

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not so much necessarily all the liquid alt stuff, there's been a ton of new

 

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levered ETFs that have come to play in the Canadian ETF industry.

 

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That's really demand that's led by the individual investor on their discount

 

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trading platforms looking at levered stocks.

 

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You can buy ETFs now that are levering a single stock.

 

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You can also buy an ETF that levers an index or levers a

 

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dividend solution where you can increase your yield.

 

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Those have been really popular among direct investors, as I said, not so much

 

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on the advisor side so for this conversation, maybe not as appropriate because

 

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they are short-term trading tools, if you will.

 

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That's somewhat the highlights for this month.

 

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I think that gives me a good base to kind of parse through a bit of

 

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the lineup, if you will, and hone in on some of those themes that

 

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you mentioned.

 

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We now have, I think it's over 50 ETF offerings.

 

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A bit more than that. I lose track of the exact number because we launched the

 

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new ETF series and this and that but, yeah, it's over 50.

 

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Hence why we'll parse through it.

 

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I feel like a couple years ago you could kind of summarize it

 

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given the size of the line-up in one broad conversation but now we

 

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almost have to go line by line. Let's start with equities.

 

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You mentioned a few of those kind of key themes that are going on

 

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international, the international trade, maybe we'll start

 

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there. Can you talk a little bit about what's been generating attention

 

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within the Fidelity line-up on the international [crosstalk].

 

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We want to cover all our bases and when we are building our ETF portfolios we

 

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need international options, obviously.

 

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Last May we continued to provide more options for

 

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investors and advisors. We now have two new

 

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international ETFs that are available as funds as well.

 

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We've been really focused on that international trade, making sure that we have

 

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as many options as possible and that we the flexibility regardless of what you

 

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are trying to achieve on the international side so from a more specific

 

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factor perspective, or style perspective. What's been the most popular

 

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is our All International Equity ETF which,

 

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basically, bundles kind of the four main factors that we have.

 

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Even to take a step back for those that are less familiar with our line-up, it

 

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is predominantly quant-based, or factor-based, strategies that

 

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we had. Obviously, active now has taken a much bigger part where we're

 

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launching ETF series of some of our active managers.

 

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If I look at the international side it's really pretty much only factors that

 

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we have available. That groups our international momentum factor,

 

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international low vol, quality and value factors, equal-weighted, and we bundle

 

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that, consistently rebalance it. Basically, that's to give you

 

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the more core exposure to international markets which, once again, have been

 

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working well, have been trading at sizable discounts to the U.S.

 

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There's a lot of tailwinds that we saw. Actually, in one of our more,

 

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and I'm kind of deviating here, in one of our recent conversations with Bobby

 

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Barnes who is head of our quant index solutions team, he

 

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had mentioned a lot of the analyst consensus earnings estimates had

 

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gone really, really ...

 

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I guess they were really increased as the year was

 

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rolling on for international markets which kind of helped, if you will, those

 

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markets progress other than the just regular catalyst of the valuation, the

 

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performance, but really the earnings growth expectations were going up really

 

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fast.

 

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We've seen that slow down a little bit and in the U.S.

 

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it's picked back up where it got really hammered during that kind of tariff tanrum.

 

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If you want to go more granular, actually, over the past week and a half we've

 

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seen a lot of demand for our international momentum ETF which is really taking

 

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advantage of that consistency that we've started to see since about Q4

 

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last year where certain parts of the

 

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broader international markets has worked really well while some have lagged.

 

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If you want to kind of bet on the winners of the past six to nine months

 

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that's probably a good place to go and it's generally a factor that does well

 

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in a late cycle environment where economic growth is a bit slower

 

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and rates are coming down which is pretty much the prescription that we have

 

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from a macro side on international.

 

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There's a lot of companies that are winning.

 

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It's definitely been something that I think that we can all see across the

 

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industry is that kind of deviation away from, if you want

 

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to call it U.S.

 

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exceptionalism or pin it on tariffs, you name it.

 

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That kind leads me into the conversation around U.S.

 

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equities and U.S.

 

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equity line-up.

 

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You mentioned some points about earnings revisions.

 

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I think if we look over the course of the past year or

 

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so EPS growth has still

 

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been dominated in the U.S.

 

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by the Mag Seven. Moving forward, who knows if that changes

 

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or it doesn't but what I think that that's created, which

 

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didn't come around yesterday, it's been the case for a little while now, but is

 

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a very concentrated market in the U.S.

 

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I'm probably not offside in saying if you're someone that is buying a passive

 

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S&P 500 ETF you have to be mindful,

 

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and maybe it's intentional, of the exposure that you will have to some of those

 

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companies. Talk to us a little bit about what our U.S.

 

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equity line-up looks like, and then also maybe part two of that

 

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question is in relation to the argument around concentration.

 

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Are there any suggestions you might have in terms of

 

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people that still want exposure to that U.S.

 

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equity market but want to maybe circumvent a little of that concentration,

 

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you'd get in a cap-weighted ETF.

 

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There's a lot to unpack there.

 

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It's a good question, we'll answer it.

 

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I'll remind you, don't worry.

 

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We'll go through the whole thing.

 

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Just to start, what you mentioned with regards to concentration and

 

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the Mag Seven dominance and those mega-cap tech growers that are just

 

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consistently churning and now generating ridiculous amounts of free cash flow,

 

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these names, it's almost impossible to avoid them completely.

 

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That's really not the objective of what we do and it's not the objective, I

 

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think, of most advisors and asset managers and portfolio managers.

 

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There are going to be some winners in that small group and then there's going

 

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to be winners in the bigger group as well.

 

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If you remove it completely, now you're creating a significant

 

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tracking error potential that can lead to not great

 

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conversations with investors.

 

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And they're good companies for a reason.

 

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They're great businesses. It's just do I want 35% of my U.S.

 

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equity to be those names? Do I want 25%?

 

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Do I want it to be 2%, 3% if I'm going with

 

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an equal-weighted index? So far this year

 

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the name of the game for the U.S., we've looked at it almost as in

 

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three phases. We are a factor-based line-up, I said that for

 

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international, it's also true for U.S. equities, when we look at the

 

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performance of our various products you've had kind of three

 

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distinct phases. If we start with the first month and a half of the year prior

 

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to the real tariff talks accelerating and more

 

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global tensions with regards to a geopolitical landscape and all this, well I

 

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mean there already was with certain areas but really picked up also with

 

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everything in the Middle East, you had a continuation of

 

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what worked last year. Basically, momentum and quality were the factors that

 

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led, late cycle factors, there was an anticipation that eventually the Fed was

 

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going to start to get a bit more doveish.

 

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Still not there yet.

 

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Still not there yet but earnings growth was also there in those names, the high

 

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quality growers, compounders, the growth side, and that's captured

 

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by momentum.

 

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Then you had this kind of volatility period where you had S&P, significant

 

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drawdown in the U.S. equity markets and, basically, what was working was

 

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what was least working. Low vol was working, value was working, dividend was

 

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working, kind of those more defensive factors trading at a discount

 

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also, so you have a lower floor. There's much less to fall if you're trading at

 

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12 times earnings versus 28, 30 times earnings.

 

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You had the complete flip. All those factors started to work except momentum.

 

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Then we had the 90-day tariff pause and then all of a sudden you went back

 

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to kind of the initial part of the market but leaving

 

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everything out but momentum.

 

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Even quality was now underperforming. It was a tough environment for us.

 

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It's a tough environment for anybody who's managing it with a fundamental loop.

 

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Even for an active manager it's a hard market because unless you're overweight

 

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those names you're likely underperforming.

 

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I recently wrote a research note, you can call them anti-factor

 

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periods or junk rallies. It's not so much a junk rally this time because it's

 

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these high quality businesses but you have this beta trade.

 

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Just buy the thing that's the most volatile and it's probably what's up.

 

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Then that gets captured by momentum but it doesn't get captured by the other

 

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factors which are looking at profitability, it's looking at valuation, it's

 

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looking at volatility, it's looking at all these other metrics that are

 

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important as portfolio managers or asset managers.

 

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All that to say, a really long summary,

 

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momentum has been what's driving markets except for a short period of time,

 

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about one month, which when you look at year-to- date a lot of the factors

 

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are either flat relative to the index and really momentum is the only one

 

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that's outperforming and low vol is underperforming now because it's been left

 

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to the side, nobody wants defence right now.

 

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Going back to the concentrationing, our line-up, you can go with an individual

 

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factor but similar to the international trade we have our All American Equity

 

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which is a core U.S. equity strategy, combines the four factors.

 

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Right now all the other factors are hanging on to momentum to

 

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carry them up. In a more regular market these things don't usually last for

 

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more than three to six months where you have this really high upswing,

 

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everything's going to the top right of the chart.

 

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It's not a persistent way to generate returns, historically,

 

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not to say that it can't.

 

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We like the position we're in right now because we've done well in a very

 

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challenging environment for us.

 

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You can point back to periods like early 2019 when we had that kind of

 

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interest rate hike scare, if you will, at the end of 2018.

 

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Same thing post inflation, 2023, if you didn't have a lot of those names,

 

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high beta names, it was tough.

 

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You could do this for pretty much every drawdown and early recovery.

 

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Hello, investors. We'll be back to the show in just a moment.

 

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DialoguesFidelity podcasts available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever

 

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else you get your podcasts. Now back to today's show.

 

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To put it into further context for our advisors who are listening,

 

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I think that kind of anecdote you gave, if you will, thus far

 

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of 2025 probably leads most people to the

 

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All International or All American.

 

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Just core.

 

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Exactly. That's a long term hold exposure,

 

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potentially generate a little bit of alpha from those strategies

 

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relative to that of a passive product.

 

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If you're someone that is really in the nitty gritty or really needs

 

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a certain exposure to complement another portion

 

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of what you're doing within your business and are willing to kind of

 

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read and react to that over time it's maybe a little bit more on the factor

 

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side.

 

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Absolutely. The All American and All International are meant to

 

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be substitutes for a pure passive building block.

 

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Our correlation to those indices is .97,

 

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I think, for international and .98 for the U.S.

 

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If the S&P 500 is up we're going to be up, if it's down we are going to be

 

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down. Ideally, we go down a bit less and up a bit more, and that's

 

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in a perfect world.

 

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Compound that and that makes a difference over time.

 

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It makes a big difference over time. We've seen that, over the long term

 

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periods, that's where we win. The longer our sample size is the better things

 

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tend to play out. Now, for somebody who is more tactical, and you did mention

 

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the concentration aspect which is something I felt like we talked about so much

 

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in '23 and '24 because we saw a lot of demand for equal-weighted

 

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S&P 500 index ETFs, we saw a a lot demand for things that

 

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were basically the opposite. Even like liquid alt strategies that were

 

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providing some defence relative to those, like

 

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covered call strategies, for example, that were really popular in those years.

 

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We look at it right now, it feels like there's not as much worry but that

 

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could change fairly quickly if they start to sell off a little bit.

 

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Nobody sees Nvidia being more than 8% of the

 

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index as an issue right now because it's up almost every day for the past

 

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couple of weeks. You accept that to a certain extent where at

 

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one point you want to flip the switch and reduce that risk.

 

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That's where a product like, for example, our U.S.

 

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Value ETF had been really popular in '23, '24.

 

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It was positive in '22 when we did have that tech sell-off, everything that was

 

[00:16:24.817]

rate sensitive getting sold off, we were positive in that year with that

 

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product. That's one strategy that if you're looking to create

 

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an offsetting anchor, if you will, to those

 

[00:16:36.829]

tech names you're really well positioned with a product like that.

 

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Not to say that it's going to work right now if that trade continues but if you

 

[00:16:43.736]

want to prepare yourself for something that rotates, or just downside

 

[00:16:46.238]

protection, that seems like a good place.

 

[00:16:49.441]

The only reason I think those strategies make sense, we will own some of those

 

[00:16:53.512]

names. We have to  from a methodology and a risk standpoint

 

[00:16:57.649]

to say we can't own 0% in those names.

 

[00:16:59.585]

It's not a pure, super intense value

 

[00:17:03.655]

ETF where we have 0% of the Mag Seven.

 

[00:17:05.924]

We'll have maybe 13 to 15, 17%, still a heck of a lot less than the index.

 

[00:17:10.596]

At the same time we still want to own some so in years like '23 and '24

 

[00:17:14.733]

you're not completely missing out on these rallies.

 

[00:17:18.804]

A product like an equal weight, unfortunately, is you're going to another

 

[00:17:21.206]

extreme. You're taking the complete other extreme, realistically.

 

[00:17:24.476]

It's like if these companies continue to win you're not going to benefit.

 

[00:17:27.713]

On the flip side, if you have a rotation to mid-caps,

 

[00:17:32.017]

to small-caps or to value names, you're consistently selling them off every

 

[00:17:36.055]

month or every quarter you're rebalancing.

 

[00:17:38.023]

Those products seem to work really well in short periods but then it's hard to

 

[00:17:41.894]

see that play out for a prolonged period of time.

 

[00:17:44.396]

I'm a little biassed, obviously, but it's a strategy that I think is kind

 

[00:17:48.400]

of right in the middle and can offset some of that risk.

 

[00:17:50.836]

Let's talk multi-asset funds or balanced funds.

 

[00:17:55.841]

The All-in-One suite has been a popular

 

[00:17:59.878]

option for a lot of advisors and investors out there that are

 

[00:18:03.982]

looking for this instant access to diversification.

 

[00:18:08.554]

Talk to us a little bit about that line-up.

 

[00:18:12.024]

Also, I'm curious, with all your comments around kind of market

 

[00:18:16.028]

dynamics in 2025 how's that played out over the course of the past couple

 

[00:18:19.531]

quarters?

 

[00:18:22.201]

Before I dive a bit deeper into the construction of these portfolios for those

 

[00:18:26.205]

that are maybe less familiar with them I just want to say thank you to

 

[00:18:28.874]

everybody on the call because it's been really what's driven our flows this

 

[00:18:31.977]

year. Those multi-asset strategies, we have a line-up, actually, I

 

[00:18:36.081]

believe it's slide 2.

 

[00:18:37.783]

I don't want to get that wrong, I don't see them right now.

 

[00:18:40.319]

If not it's probably slide 3.

 

[00:18:41.920]

There you go. We just threw up the All-in-One line-up.

 

[00:18:45.524]

We have this suite of products, six portfolios, they're systematically

 

[00:18:48.694]

rebalanced. We don't make any tactical asset allocation calls, strategic mix,

 

[00:18:52.764]

and we want to really capture the security selection of all the different

 

[00:18:56.401]

underlyings that we have.

 

[00:18:59.738]

Advisors and investors have responded really well to the strategy.

 

[00:19:02.207]

Obviously, performance has been good. It's gone through these various different

 

[00:19:05.644]

environments and held up well. If I look at the flows from this year it's more

 

[00:19:09.448]

than 60% of our total flows that we've gotten at Fidelity in terms of our ETF.

 

[00:19:13.986]

If I look at the Canadian ETF industry as a whole, in July

 

[00:19:17.923]

FBAL, our balanced ETF, was fourth, FGRO was eighth, and ninth was

 

[00:19:21.860]

our FEQT ETF.

 

[00:19:23.629]

Three of the top 10 best-selling ETFs in the whole industry are in this

 

[00:19:27.566]

line-up. So thank you everyone who's helped with that.

 

[00:19:30.869]

We like to believe that a lot of that, hopefully, is due to the portfolio

 

[00:19:33.405]

construction that we've built.

 

[00:19:34.373]

Maybe I can ask you to, as a follow-up there, without naming names,

 

[00:19:38.777]

what's different in terms of what we do in those portfolios maybe versus

 

[00:19:42.948]

that of some of our competitors?

 

[00:19:46.051]

Realistically, when we launched these portfolios back in 2021 we saw a

 

[00:19:49.454]

landscape that was extremely ...

 

[00:19:51.823]

I guess there was no diversification of options.

 

[00:19:53.825]

If you're an investor, an advisor, and you're looking for an ETF portfolio

 

[00:19:58.830]

most competitors were doing pretty much the same thing.

 

[00:20:00.966]

It's passive building blocks, static asset allocation, which is fine,

 

[00:20:04.937]

which is also what we're employing, static asset strategic maybe is a better

 

[00:20:07.573]

word. You were getting exposure ...

 

[00:20:10.209]

your U.S. equities were either your S&P 500 or U.S. All-Cap. Your international

 

[00:20:12.978]

was MSCI EAFE  or International Developed ex-U.S., Canada was TSX

 

[00:20:17.149]

or TSX 60. It was all very similar building blocks and similar

 

[00:20:21.286]

approaches, similar mixes. We said we want to play in that

 

[00:20:25.490]

arena but how can we leverage all the research that we have and all our

 

[00:20:29.328]

capabilities as much on the factor side as on the active side?

 

[00:20:32.831]

Other than our Bitcoin allocation in our portfolios there's no

 

[00:20:37.135]

component that's passively managed, whereas our competitors, it's

 

[00:20:41.240]

the opposite. Everything is passively managed.

 

[00:20:42.941]

There's no components that are actively managed, or systematically.

 

[00:20:46.378]

I say that, there's some that have some smart beta or factor-based strategies

 

[00:20:49.982]

but very little. Ours is foundationally built off of we

 

[00:20:54.019]

want to outperform indices over the long term.

 

[00:20:57.122]

We're not trying to generate 10% excess returns, that's not the idea.

 

[00:21:00.626]

The idea is similar to the Regional Equity ETFs which we mentioned earlier, if

 

[00:21:03.929]

we can generate 1 1/2 to 2% alpha over 10,

 

[00:21:07.899]

15 years it's going to look pretty good over that timeframe on

 

[00:21:11.903]

a cumulative basis.

 

[00:21:14.306]

By doing that what it's done is if we look at our main competitors and you

 

[00:21:18.410]

really blow up all the underlying ETFs, they're going to hold between 20,000

 

[00:21:22.381]

to 22, sometimes even 25,000 underlying securities,

 

[00:21:26.785]

bonds, equities, others.

 

[00:21:29.855]

We have about 2,500.

 

[00:21:32.157]

We're, basically, filtering the entire investment universe of the world down

 

[00:21:36.361]

to a tenth of what our competitors would do.

 

[00:21:40.032]

Basically, trying to say, we're not always going to pick the best

 

[00:21:44.069]

names but if we can eliminate a lot of the names that are less desirable from a

 

[00:21:48.106]

fundamental perspective that should work out over time.

 

[00:21:51.109]

See it as a big funnel or a big filter.

 

[00:21:53.412]

We do that for Canadian equities, U.S.

 

[00:21:55.213]

equities, international equities, Canadian bonds, U.S.

 

[00:21:57.616]

bonds. That's, really, the whole thesis on

 

[00:22:02.020]

us versus our competitors.

 

[00:22:03.388]

Generally speaking, in the industry, a couple of crazy stats, I

 

[00:22:07.526]

read this last week and I was like, I'm not sure.

 

[00:22:09.895]

There's actually more active ETFs listed in the U.S.

 

[00:22:13.732]

than passive ETFs listed in the U.S.

 

[00:22:14.866]

Wow.

 

[00:22:17.536]

Nobody really knows that. I mean, the assets are far greater

 

[00:22:21.673]

in passive but it's just showing that innovation, and

 

[00:22:25.610]

going forward the growth areas, is really on the active side.

 

[00:22:28.613]

There's only so much more that can be done on the passive side.

 

[00:22:31.249]

I don't think there's any validity to launch another S&P 500 ETF.

 

[00:22:34.386]

Now what you're seeing is a lot of asset managers really

 

[00:22:38.457]

trying to bring their best managers to market, like we've done with the

 

[00:22:42.761]

two examples I gave, we've got a bunch of others as well, we just want to

 

[00:22:46.298]

provide more options to advisors.

 

[00:22:48.166]

For the most part, it's an ETF series so

 

[00:22:52.471]

it's literally being pooled into the same fund of assets.

 

[00:22:55.307]

For the portfolio manager, don't really see the difference, but for a

 

[00:22:59.811]

discretionary advisor it might be easier to buy the ETF.

 

[00:23:01.646]

For another manager it might be easier buy the fund.

 

[00:23:04.683]

For us it's just more of a flexibility and then also the belief

 

[00:23:08.754]

in our active managers who have done exceptionally well over their track

 

[00:23:12.057]

records and getting them to more people.

 

[00:23:15.827]

Maybe we'll end off here. Before I close things out, two

 

[00:23:19.965]

things that we didn't talk a lot about, one

 

[00:23:23.935]

of them I know is a part of the All-in-One portfolios

 

[00:23:28.273]

and the other has been certainly a source of

 

[00:23:33.111]

news and market interest over the course of, really,  the past probably year

 

[00:23:37.149]

or so, gold and Bitcoin.

 

[00:23:41.286]

One thing that was interesting when I looked through some of the materials

 

[00:23:44.122]

before we got on here, and even just my own knowledge, they've

 

[00:23:48.660]

been two of the top performing kind of asset classes over the short

 

[00:23:52.597]

recent past but it seems like there's not necessarily

 

[00:23:57.269]

as much demand from necessarily a flow perspective

 

[00:24:01.440]

directly into those assets, as you might expect.

 

[00:24:05.076]

We expected more, basically.

 

[00:24:06.211]

Exactly, with them being top performing asset classes.

 

[00:24:09.581]

Any general thoughts in terms of what's going on there?

 

[00:24:13.552]

We include Bitcoin in our All-in-One ETFs.

 

[00:24:15.887]

It's something that's been, you know, obviously, we took the time to make sure

 

[00:24:19.257]

that we were including it in the right way in the sense from a risk-adjusted

 

[00:24:22.661]

return basis.

 

[00:24:24.930]

That's just an allocation, I think, that helps our portfolio a lot for a few

 

[00:24:28.800]

reasons. Kind of the optics that I have with regards to gold is kind of

 

[00:24:32.771]

the same, what is it doing for you in your portfolio?

 

[00:24:35.774]

Gold as a standalone asset class, you can be for or against it, it's

 

[00:24:40.078]

your opinion. But if you're building out your portfolio and you can model it

 

[00:24:42.814]

out and see how is this impacting my risk and return, well, I think there's

 

[00:24:45.784]

validity for that as well.

 

[00:24:47.619]

Same thing for Bitcoin.

 

[00:24:50.288]

To your point, they've been performing extremely well.

 

[00:24:54.159]

At first when you heard Bitcoin really have its kind of rise to

 

[00:24:58.296]

fame it was kind of like this is the digital gold. Kind

 

[00:25:02.434]

of so far history has kind of debunked that. They've behaved very differently.

 

[00:25:05.237]

Now you have a year where they're both doing well.

 

[00:25:07.706]

So figuring out exactly why is a little trivial, to be quite honest,

 

[00:25:11.810]

but you almost had gold was kind of the risk-off version and then you had

 

[00:25:15.547]

Bitcoin which is the risk-on version. You had years where they worked in tandem

 

[00:25:19.784]

but they've also worked against each other at a certain point.

 

[00:25:23.154]

Almost to a certain extent both could be used together in portfolios.

 

[00:25:27.158]

All that to say is I think it's just proof that there's maybe a bit of

 

[00:25:31.029]

uncertainty also around just regular equity markets or bond markets

 

[00:25:35.100]

so people are looking for alternatives.

 

[00:25:36.902]

It'll be interesting to see how this unfolds over the rest of the year.

 

[00:25:39.671]

Thanks so much. Appreciate your time as always.

 

[00:25:42.173]

Thanks for watching or listening to the Fidelity Connects

 

[00:25:46.111]

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[00:26:19.077]

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,

 

[00:26:22.914]

and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or

 

[00:26:26.851]

its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not

 

[00:26:30.855]

be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.

 

[00:26:33.391]

It is not an offer to sell or buy.

 

[00:26:35.694]

Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities

 

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cited. Read a fund's prospectus before investing, funds are not guaranteed.

 

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Their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated.

 

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Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated

 

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with fund investments.

 

[00:26:52.544]

Thanks again. We'll see you next time.