Unlimited debuts hedge fund strategy ETF

Unlimited, a new investment firm co-founded by Bob Elliott, a former senior investment executive at the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, has launched an actively managed liquid alternatives ETF.

The Unlimited HFND Multi-Strategy Return Tracker ETF (HFND US) has been listed on NYSE Arca with an expense ratio of 0.95%.

The fund aims to mimic the performance of a diverse range of leading hedge funds, providing retail investors with returns that are uncorrelated to traditional asset classes in a liquid, cost-effective, and transparent vehicle.

Bob Elliott, CEO and CIO of Unlimited, said: “After spending many years in the hedge fund industry, we’ve identified that investors are either ill-served by exorbitant fees in the asset class or are unable to access such exclusive strategies.

“With HFND, we are bridging what we see as a crucial gap in the market by bringing together the best parts of the hedge fund industry with the democratizing structure of an ETF. Ultimately, we believe every investor should have access to institutional quality return potential.”

The fund is not the first ETF to replicate hedge fund strategies, although many existing products rely upon public filings which may suffer from misleading or out-of-date information. Other hedge fund style ETFs target just a single strategy which may undergo extended periods of underperformance.

Unlimited’s ETF aims to address these issues by utilizing machine learning algorithms to analyze the real-time investment returns of a diversified set of hedge fund styles. The fund then allocates toward a basket of ETFs and exchange-listed futures contracts to replicate the returns of those underlying hedge funds.

Co-managing the ETF alongside Bob Elliot is Bruce McNevin, co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist at Unlimited. McNevin is a Professor of Economics at New York University and has held various data science positions at hedge funds Clinton Group and Midway Group, along with positions at Bank of America and BlackRock.

The fund has launched at an opportune time as investors continue to ramp up their allocations to alternative investments in a bid to add diversified sources of return amid a challenging market environment – traditional 60/40 equity and fixed income portfolios have performed dismally this year amid heightened volatility, decades-high inflation, and rapidly rising interest rates.