I can imagine the conversation surrounding the creation of these ETFs by the Truth Social team. I assume it went something like this:

Boss: “Hey, we have a captive audience of fervent fans, how can we make more money from them?”
Worker: “There’s lots of money in the financial services industry!”
Boss: “Great idea. What if we launch a bunch of ETFs that hold US stocks with patriotic names and charge a huge premium?”
Worker: “But wouldn’t we just be offering a strictly inferior product at 21X the cost, thus directly hurting our own customers?”
Boss: “…”
Worker: “Just kidding”
Both: “Muwhwhahahaaahahaha!”

For what it’s worth, these Truth Social ETFs don’t stand alone in the world of crappy ETFs or financial products. That’s a long and storied list. I don’t buy any of them as I won’t be buying these. As wise, disciplined investors know, the best thing you can do to improve your own investment returns is reduce your expenses. Paying 21X the annual fee to hold a subset of the same stocks is very likely to result in a bad outcome.

I’m not one to speculate, but you asked me to predict the future, this is what I think will happen. 4 out of 5 of these will underperform the stock market. The last one will beat it by a slim margin. I have no idea which one it will be, because it will be due to randomness, not the genius of the ETF. You’ll never hear about the 4 losers again. In fact, they may discontinue them due to low interest, and roll the funds into the one winner. Then the winner will be advertised to their audience as though it’s a way to beat the market. “Hey Truth Socialites! Look at TSXX, it has beaten the S&P 500 over the last 5 years. Put your money in now”. But of course, those who invest after the winner emerges will be chasing past performance and in for underperformance going forward. Don’t fall for that marketing trick.

Other random fun fact: I had trouble finding one of the expense ratios for these ETFs because their press release had a typo in the ticker symbol. Don’t buy from the guys who can’t spell their own ticker right. Do follow the two rules.

– Jeremy