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Investment management firm makes its 13-year-old private fund available for all investors
PHILADELPHIA, February 12, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Elm Wealth, an independent investment management firm dedicated to intelligent and cost-effective wealth management, today announced the launch of its Elm Market Navigator (NYSE: ELM) exchange-traded fund (ETF). With roughly $362 million in assets, this is the most well-capitalized ETF launched this year.
ELM launched with a 0.26% gross expense ratio and a 2bps management fee waiver, reducing the net expense ratio to 0.24%—less than half the Morningstar Global Allocation category average (Morningstar US Fund Fee Study, 2024). Elm Wealth decided to launch its ETF now to take advantage of the recent drop in costs involved in listing and operating ETFs.
Before being listed on the New York Stock Exchange, ELM was a private fund initiated at Elm Wealth’s 2011 launch. The ETF follows Elm’s Dynamic Index Investing® strategy which emphasizes maximizing risk-adjusted returns through a globally diversified portfolio that evolves in response to changing market conditions.
"We believe a sound investing approach should be eyes-open and responsive to varying risks and return, which is why we created Dynamic Index Investing®," said Victor Haghani, founder of Elm Wealth. "By converting our private fund to an ETF, we're offering all investors a low-cost and tax-efficient way to systematically adjust their portfolio to market risks, interest rates, and evolving return opportunities."
Another aspect that makes Elm Wealth’s Dynamic Index Investing® strategy unique is that it is fully transparent and rules-based, allowing investors to follow along with regular changes in their asset allocation.
"We believe the comfort of knowing your portfolio responds to changing markets allows people to comfortably run a greater average exposure to equities than if they have to commit to a static, fixed asset allocation," explains Elm Wealth’s Chief Executive Officer James White.
ELM’s portfolio of low-cost index ETFs starts with a baseline of 75 percent allocation in global equities and the remaining 25 percent in fixed income. The fund’s equity allocation and geographical exposure then change in line with alterations in the expected return and risk of the different asset classes.
Haghani, who was a managing director in Salomon Brothers’ famed bond arbitrage unit and a co-founder of the hedge fund LTCM, created Elm Wealth out of a desire for a wealth management solution that combined the best features of passive and active management to invest his family’s wealth. Later, Haghani co-wrote The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions with White, who made stops along his career at Bank of America and Citadel.