Bill Birmingham spent his career as a buy-side equity research analyst before joining REX Shares to help build their crypto product suite — and eventually take on a broader mandate of finding the next emerging investment themes before they're obvious. That search led him to drones.

In this episode, Bill breaks down DRNZ — the REX Drone ETF and the only pure-play UAV fund on the market. We get into why existing defense ETFs were failing drone investors, how the index is constructed to capture emerging names before they dominate the cap table, and why the counter-drone market may actually be a bigger opportunity than drones themselves. Bill also walks through where commercial drone revenue is real right now, why he's revised his eVTOL timeline closer than he originally expected, and what the FAA's pending BVLOS rulemaking unlocks for industrial use cases that are technically ready but operationally stuck.

If you've been watching the drone space and wondering how to get clean exposure to it — this is the episode.

Learn more at rexshares.com and follow REX Shares and Bill Birmingham on X

Mo is the Chief Product Officer at Direxion — and the person who first told Brad to start a podcast instead of a Netflix series. Years later, he's the guest. With a career that ran from Vanguard to the New York Stock Exchange to Raymond James before landing at Direxion, Mo brings a rare cross-sectional view of the ETF industry that few in the space can match.

In this episode, Mo breaks down how Direxion — now managing roughly $55 billion across 130+ ETFs — builds tools for active traders to express short-term views with leverage. We get into how the daily reset mechanism works and why holding these products beyond a single day changes the math, how the firm decides which single stock names deserve a leveraged wrapper (and whether to offer bull, bear, or both), and why most trader assets still flow overwhelmingly to the bull side. Mo also walks through the new Titan series concentrated basket concept, the right and wrong ways advisors are using these products in client portfolios, and where the category goes from here — including what the team has publicly filed and what they're watching in the tokenization space.

It's a candid conversation about a corner of the ETF market that is widely misunderstood and underappreciated as a legitimate portfolio tool.

Chris Tessin, founder of Acuitas Investments, joins the show to break down AIMS — the Acuitas Multi-Manager Small Cap ETF and one of the most structurally unique products we've covered on Behind the Ticker. Rather than a single portfolio manager picking stocks, AIMS aggregates multiple deeply researched, truly active small cap managers into one ETF wrapper at a single all-in fee of 75 basis points. Chris walks through how the multi-manager model works, how Acuitas sources and underwrites managers — often finding them before anyone else is paying attention — why active management has a real edge in small cap, and why the valuation and earnings setup for small cap makes this a compelling time to pay attention to the space.

Sean Emory, founder and CIO of Avory and Company, joins the show to break down the firm's newly launched Avory Foundational ETF (AVRY) and the decade-long investment philosophy behind it. Sean walks through Avory's "investing forward" framework — identifying secular friction points in the economy, finding the companies built to solve them, and running a high-conviction portfolio of 20 to 30 names across two buckets: structural secular winners and established businesses undergoing genuine transformation. We dig into the Six M's research process, how the fund manages position sizing and cash allocation, why identity verification is one of Sean's highest-conviction themes in an AI-driven world, and how advisors should think about AVRY as a core equity holding. Sean also pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to launch an ETF as an independent issuer.

Rob Arnott chose Wall Street over astrophysics, built his career applying scientific method to markets, and coined the fundamental indexing revolution that now runs $150B+ in assets. He breaks down the hidden drag inside cap-weighted indices -- stocks get added after they soar and deleted after they crash -- and explains how RAFI's rebalancing alpha has beaten cap-weighted value in three out of four years over 20 years live. We dig into RAUS (fundamental selection, cap weighting, 99.9% correlation to the S&P but 90bps ahead in six months at zero fees), the upcoming RAFI Growth index that beats Russell Growth by 4.5% annually over 30 years, and NIXT -- the deletions ETF that buys the names index funds are forced to dump. Plus: why the Mag 7 resembles the dot-com bubble, where the real bargains are, and the CFA monograph proving membership in an index has its privileges.

Christian Magoon built First Trust's early ETF business, raised $3B at Claymore before it was acquired by Guggenheim, and launched Amplify ETFs in 2015 — now approaching $20B across 40 funds. He breaks down Amplify's barbell strategy of income and thematic growth, explains why SILJ (the only junior silver miners ETF) won Alternative ETF of the Year, and makes the case that silver's industrial demand from AI, EVs, and solar gives it a profile gold can't match. Plus: the YieldSmart covered call approach, how junior miners act as leveraged silver, and why Amplify's open-architecture model is built for durability.

Paul Marino spent 25+ years in asset management, starting as a wholesaler at Federated Investors, managing teams at Pioneer Investments, and eventually making the jump to ETFs. Before any of that, he was a journalist at Newsday, the sixth largest daily newspaper in the country. Now, as Chief Revenue Officer at Themes ETFs, he brings all of it together - sales, marketing, PR, and a knack for communicating complex investment ideas clearly.

In this episode, we get into two of the most targeted thematic ETFs on the market. First, DRGN - a China-focused generative AI fund built to give U.S. investors access to the AI buildout happening inside China, completely separate from U.S. tech exposure. Paul walks through the index construction, how they screen for sanctions compliance, and why he sees Chinese AI as a distinct return stream that complements what most advisors already hold.

Then we pivot to BOTT - the humanoid robotics ETF. This one goes beyond what most people picture when they hear "humanoid robots." The portfolio spans factory automation, autonomous driving, specialized semiconductors, and industrial machine parts across South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and the U.S. Paul explains why equal weighting and semiannual rebalancing keeps the fund from becoming a single-stock bet, and why adoption in robotics might follow the same curve as commercial aviation.

We also dig into how advisors are using thematic sleeves alongside core portfolios, how Themes identifies market gaps and moves quickly from idea to product launch, and why Paul believes early positioning in these spaces matters.

Sean O'Hara started in financial services in 1985, moved into wholesaling, and helped build the Hartford's mutual fund and 401k platforms before striking out on his own in 2007. By 2015, he and partner Joe Thompson were launching Pacer's first ETFs. Today, Pacer manages roughly $42 billion across 57 products — every one built around a simple filter: innovative, disruptive, or unique. No cheap beta replication.

In this episode, Sean breaks down QDPL, Pacer's S&P 500-based income strategy that delivers four times the S&P's dividend yield without leverage or covered calls. We walk through how the 85/15 equity-to-T-bill split works, how dividend futures mechanics generate roughly 5% cash flow with the bulk distributed as tax-free return of capital, and what the actual trade-offs look like on both the upside and downside.

Sean explains how QDPL fits into an advisor's portfolio — from a 50/50 blend with SPY to a potential bond replacement — and why the product's timing is more compelling now with short-term yields falling back toward 3%. We also get into Pacer's boots-on-the-ground distribution model with 120-plus salespeople, why market maker relationships matter more than most issuers realize, and how products like SRVR and TRFK were built with patience for the market to catch up to the thesis.

Key Takeaways:

• QDPL delivers 4x the S&P 500 dividend yield (~5% today) through dividend futures, not leverage or covered calls
• 85% equity / 15% T-bills structure — you keep most of the S&P upside while generating meaningful income
• Bulk of distributions are tax-free return of capital — a major advantage over traditional dividend strategies
• S&P dividends historically grow 5-7% per year, creating a built-in tailwind for the futures contracts
• Pacer runs 120+ salespeople — old-school boots-on-the-ground distribution in a digital-first industry
• Products like SRVR and TRFK prove patience pays — both sat dormant for years before their thesis played out

Get Brad's daily market research: Subscribe to The Signal at thorft.com/newsletter

More episodes: thorft.com/podcast