David Dziekanski: The End of the Options-Based Income ETF Trade-Off

David Dziekanski: The End of the Options-Based Income ETF Trade-Off

The options income ETF industry just crossed $1 trillion in assets — and almost nobody is talking about the structural flaw buried inside every one of those products. David Dziekanski, co-founder, CEO, and CIO of Quantify Funds, spent nearly two decades building ETFs — more than 75 of them — before he saw a gap so fundamental he had to build something entirely new. In this episode of Raise Your Average, Pierre Daillie and Mike Philbrick sit down with David to examine what covered call and derivative income ETFs get wrong, why most investors don't realize it, and how Quantify's Stacked Income fund family — powered by Return Stacked ETFs and Convexitas as options sub-advisor — attempts to deliver income, full upside exposure, and genuine diversification without asking investors to choose between them. ⏱ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Introduction: The $1 trillion problem hiding in options income ETFs 03:00 — David Dziekanski: Career background, Tidal Financial Group, and the founding thesis of Quantify Funds 05:00 — The three design flaws of derivative income ETFs: income targeting, formulaic strategies, and lack of benchmarking 10:00 — Why covered call ETFs became popular — and why advisors accepted the trade-off for so long 13:00 — Delta drift explained: how a 0.74 delta on day one becomes 0.54 by month-end without any manager decision 17:00 — Negative alpha in plain sight: why most covered call products underperform even a T-bill + equity blend 20:00 — Convexitas's three-step options framework: implied vs. realized vol, skew profiling, and tenor selection 24:00 — The core thesis: income without sacrificing total return — ending the trade-off 27:00 — Return stacking as capital efficiency: A + B in a single dollar, and imposed diversification 30:00 — Distribution policy: why Quantify lowers payouts in drawdowns and tops up on rebounds 53:00 — Fee structure: 114 bps on 200% exposure = 57 bps unlevered, and why that beats the competition 55:00 — Daily trade transparency: how Quantify posts options rationale on X every trading day 59:00 — Building behavioral stickiness: transparency, distributions, and investor intuition 01:01:00 — The advisor conversation: aha moments and the covered call education gap 01:05:00 — Simplicity vs. complexity: blind spots are the cost of simple option strategies 01:09:00 — Quantify as "version 3.0" of options income — crawl, walk, run adoption framework 01:11:00 — BTGD, ISBG, ISSB: the Bitcoin + gold stacking thesis and currency debasement 01:15:00 — Gold, Bitcoin, and scarcity assets: what comes after the bazooka 01:22:00 — Closing: why the derivative income category exists, and where it needs to go Links & Resources Quantify Funds: quantifyfunds.com [https://www.quantifyfunds.com] Daily trade rationale: Quantify Funds on X (Twitter) [https://x.com/quantifyfunds?lang=en] Return Stacked ETFs: returnstackedetfs.com [https://www.returnstackedetfs.com] Convexitas: convexitas.com [https://www.convexitas.com] #OptionsIncome #CoveredCallETF #ReturnStacking #ETFinvesting #QuantifyFunds #Convexitas #VolatilityHarvesting #BitcoinETF #GoldETF #IncomeInvesting #DividendETF #OptionsStrategy #WealthManagement #AlternativeInvesting #FinancialAdvisor #RaiseYourAverage #ETFEducation #ImpliedVolatility #OptionsAlpha #CurrencyDebasement #PortfolioConstruction #CapitalEfficiency #RetailInvestor #PassiveIncome #SmartBeta

Justin Huhn: Uranium is the Missing Layer Beneath the AI Trade

Most portfolios already own the AI trade — but almost none own the energy underneath it, and that's exactly where the next big opportunity lives. In this episode of Raise Your Average, hosts Pierre Daillie and Mike Philbrick sit down with Justin Huhn, Founder, Lead Analyst and Editor of Uranium Insider, to unpack why uranium is the missing layer beneath the AI trade — and why the structural supply-demand imbalance in the nuclear fuel cycle may be one of the most consequential and overlooked investment opportunities of the decade. Justin traces uranium's journey from a forgotten commodity trading near $18/lb in 2017 to today's spot price of $85 — and explains why the bull case is more durable now than ever. The convergence of AI data center power demand, Western electricity grid strain, reactor life extensions, hyperscaler nuclear power agreements, and a deeply undersupplied fuel cycle has created a structural setup that, in Justin's view, doesn't require the AI tailwind to deliver significantly higher uranium prices. That tailwind is, as he puts it, "a bonus." The conversation covers the full uranium fuel cycle — from mine to reactor — including why supply simply cannot respond as quickly as demand, why utilities are systematically late to contract, how hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google and Amazon entering the nuclear fuel market is a landmark signal, and how advisors can think about positioning uranium as an infrastructure-adjacent hedge on the AI power squeeze. ⏱ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Introduction: AI, energy crisis, and the nuclear renaissance 04:04 — Why nuclear is the only power source AI infrastructure actually needs 09:07 — Justin Huhn: from $18/lb uranium to the global nuclear renaissance 13:50 — Safety, carbon, and why the anti-nuclear narrative finally broke 16:16 — Western electricity demand awakens: AI and electrification converge 21:32 — U.S. grid stress: data centers testing the limits of existing infrastructure 23:40 — Every U.S. reactor getting life extended; hyperscalers entering the fuel cycle 26:39 — What Microsoft, Google and Amazon signing nuclear deals actually signals 28:49 — Supply vs. demand: why uranium can't be turned on like an oil well 34:44 — Why uranium price is almost irrelevant to reactor restart decisions 39:17 — How utilities contract uranium: long-term deals, herd behaviour and missed timing 44:57 — Why utilities have been "utterly wrong" about price trajectory — and why that matters 50:35 — How Uranium Insider models supply and demand out to 2040 52:40 — The dynamic trading model: doubling money while outperforming ETFs by 50–60% 53:10 — Reading the physical market, sentiment signals, and RSI for trade timing 57:54 — Uranium as an advisor portfolio play: the AI-adjacent energy infrastructure trade 59:07 — SMR demand, OPG Darlington, and what the next leg of the cycle looks like #Uranium #NuclearEnergy #AIInfrastructure #EnergyInvesting #UraniumInsider #NuclearRenaissance #DataCenterPower #SmallModularReactors #UraniumBullMarket #RaiseYourAverage #CriticalMinerals #EnergyTransition #NuclearStocks #UraniumMining #PowerGrid #AIDataCenters #AlternativeEnergy #PortfolioConstruction #InvestmentStrategy #FinancePodcast

Larry Swedroe: The Adaptive Market & The Undiversified Investor

Larry Swedroe has spent 30 years proving the market will almost always beat you — and in this episode, he explains why that's about to become even more true. In this episode of Raise Your Average, hosts Pierre Daillie and Mike Philbrick sit down with legendary evidence-based investing author and outsourced CIO Larry Swedroe for a wide-ranging masterclass on where markets are heading and what investors must do to survive them. Swedroe breaks down how AI is accelerating market efficiency rather than unlocking alpha, why the 60/40 portfolio carries far more equity risk than most investors realize, and why true hyper-diversification — across private credit, reinsurance, return stacking, and long-short factor strategies — is the only credible response to a world where correlation assumptions break at exactly the wrong moment. He confronts the behavioral mistakes social media is making worse, challenges advisors to stress-test risk tolerance with real dollar numbers, and argues the future of wealth management belongs to those who master alternatives. ⏱ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open: AI and the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis 02:00 — Welcome to Larry Swedroe 03:00 — Post-Retirement Life: Consulting, Writing, and Giving Back 09:00 — AI and Market Efficiency: Does Technology Create or Destroy Alpha? 11:00 — Factor Model History: CAPM, Fama-French, and Shrinking Active Alpha 14:00 — Warren Buffett's Disappearing Alpha 21:00 — The Danger of AI Data Mining and False Correlations 23:00 — What Makes a Factor Worth Owning: Persistent, Pervasive, Robust 28:00 — Leverage Aversion: When a Little Is Good and a Lot Is Dangerous 30:00 — Private Credit and the Case for Senior Secured Loans 31:00 — Return Stacking and Portable Alpha 34:00 — Hyper-Diversification: Why Your 60/40 Is Really 90/10 in Risk Terms 39:00 — The 40-Year Period Growth Stocks Underperformed Long Treasuries 40:00 — Reinsurance and AQR Style Premium: Self-Healing Assets and Impatience 45:00 — The Real Definition of Diversification: Something Is Always Hurting 47:00 — Good Advisors Are People Managers, Not Money Managers 54:00 — Stress-Testing Risk Tolerance with Real Dollar Numbers 56:00 — Monte Carlo and the True Cost of Avoiding Alternatives 59:00 — Trend Following: Clustered Returns and Why You Buy Insurance at a Cost 01:05:00 — Behavioral Mistakes in the Age of Social Media 01:07:00 — Information vs. Value-Relevant Information: Why Reddit Won't Make You Rich 01:11:00 — The Future of Advisory Practice: Wealth Management and the Next Decade #EvidenceBasedInvesting #FactorInvesting #MarketEfficiency #AIInvesting #ReturnStacking #BehavioralFinance #WealthManagement #AlternativeInvestments #PortfolioConstruction #FinancialAdvisor #RaiseYourAverage #LarrySwedroe #RetirementPlanning #ManagedFutures #TrendFollowing #PrivateCredit #Reinsurance #HyperDiversification #InvestmentStrategy #FinancePodcast #IndexInvesting #FactorPremium #ActiveVsPassive #AdvisorAnalyst #MikePhilbrick #PierreDaillie #LongShortStrategy #MonteCarloSimulation #SequenceOfReturnsRisk #PortfolioRisk

The Covered Call ETF Gap | Zed Francis and Devin Anderson

Most investors think they understand what they own — Devin Anderson and Zed Francis of Convexitas are here to prove they don't, and to show what the next generation of derivative investing actually looks like. Pierre Daillie and Mike Philbrick welcome Devin Anderson and Zed Francis, Co-Founders of Convexitas, for a masterclass in derivative investing that challenges everything advisors and investors think they know about covered calls, buffered ETFs, and options-based income strategies. Drawing on deep institutional backgrounds — Devin from two decades at Deutsche Bank's equity derivatives structuring desk, and Zed from UBS credit trading, distressed hedge funds, and Legal & General — the two founders lay bare the hidden complexity lurking inside "simple" yield products that dominate today's wealth management landscape. The conversation pulls no punches: the hockey-stick diagrams used to explain covered call ETFs at point-of-sale actively mask real-time risk exposures that can shift dramatically intraday. A product sold as "half the risk of equities" can quietly become nearly full equity exposure within hours of a 1% market move — and most advisors and clients have no idea. Devin and Zed argue this isn't a reason to abandon these products, but a powerful case for active, continuous derivative management that delivers what the product actually promised. The founders introduce Convexitas's philosophy: that the options market is structurally mispriced, and that most yield-seeking investors are sitting on the wrong side of that mispricing. They walk through the SMA-based approach — designed to generate accessible liquidity precisely when markets crash, enabling advisors to rebalance into distressed assets rather than being frozen by tax friction, behavioral paralysis, or trapped capital in fund wrappers. From the mechanics of short volatility to the case for unfunded overlays, return stacking, and Warren Buffett's alpha decoded through Fama-French factors, this episode is essential listening for any advisor navigating the derivative income revolution. CHAPTERS 00:00 — Introduction: The income wave reshaping wealth management 04:52 — Meet Devin Anderson & Zed Francis: Career arcs and the founding of Convexitas 12:16 — What investors actually own: The hidden complexity inside covered call ETFs 16:18 — Real-time risk exposure: How moneyness shifts dramatically intraday 19:17 — The silent danger: Stacking short volatility across multiple products 28:00 — Structural mispricing in the options market: Why sellers face a systemic disadvantage 38:00 — Investment products vs. trading instruments: A critical distinction for advisors 43:08 — The income stack: Gaining Gold and Bitcoin exposure with capital efficiency 50:43 — First-gen vs. next-gen: From buffered ETFs to actively managed derivative overlays 57:08 — Tax efficiency, rebalancing, and the SMA advantage 01:18:06 — Why accessible capital is the biggest benefit of risk mitigation — not mark-to-market 01:23:53 — Buying when there's blood in the streets: Liquidity, structure, and Warren Buffett's alpha 01:26:37 — Final outlook: Inflation, financialization, and the binary tail risks ahead #CoveredCallETF #BufferedETF #DerivativeInvesting #OptionsTrading #WealthManagement #VolatilityHarvesting #ReturnStacking #TailRiskHedge #FinancialAdvisors #IncomeInvesting #PortfolioConstruction #AlternativeInvestments #RiskManagement #TaxEfficientInvesting #SMAInvesting #RaiseYourAverage #Convexitas #InvestmentStrategy #OptionsEducation #AdvisorAlpha Copyright © AdvisorAnalyst

Dave Nadig: The ETF Bubble Nobody is Talking About

The ETF industry has never been more powerful — or more crowded. Dave Nadig, President & Director of Research at ETF.com, joins Pierre Daillie and Mike Philbrick for a no-holds-barred conversation on the structural risks building beneath the surface of the world's most successful financial innovation. From a potential flood of mutual fund conversions to single-stock leverage ETFs, prediction market shenanigans, private credit illiquidity traps, tokenization timelines, AI's impact on the investment industry, and the quiet erosion of the ETF's greatest strength — simplicity — this is the ETF conversation the industry isn't having. ⏱ Chapters 00:00 — Introduction: Dave Nadig, President & Director of Research, ETF.com 00:46 — The Mutual Fund-to-ETF Conversion Flood: 5,000 Funds in the Pipeline 03:12 — The Plumbing Stress Test: Market Makers, Lead Market Makers & Capacity Limits 05:40 — Too Many Tickers: When Choice Becomes Paralysis 07:51 — The Case FOR Mutual Funds: Where the Structure Still Wins 10:34 — Private Credit ETFs: Retail Bag-Holding at the End of the Cycle? 13:06 — Private Equity ETFs, SpaceX Shenanigans & Liquidity Illusions 18:02 — ETF Proliferation: More Tickers Than Stocks 19:50 — The K-Shaped ETF Innovation Curve: Institutional Genius vs. Levered Junk 22:26 — Prediction Markets, Kalshi & Single-Counterparty Risk 25:04 — AI in Investment Management: Hype vs. Genuine Edge 27:18 — Tokenization: When Does It Actually Matter for Retail? 29:38 — Atomic Settlement, Blockchain, and the DTCC's Big Project 33:27 — Crypto, Prediction Markets & Where the Money Is Really Going 36:11 — 24/7 Equity Markets: Opportunity or Chaos? 45:25 — The Kitchen Drawer Metaphor: Good Tools vs. Junk Drawer ETFs 48:00 — Covered Call ETFs & the Yield Illusion: Total Return Is the Litmus Test 50:40 — How to Spot Extractive Products vs. Genuine Innovation 54:52 — Why Dave Came Back to ETF.com — and Why He Won't Stay in a Box 01:00:02 — ETF.com 3.0: Content, Pop-Up Events & the ETF Beach House 01:03:02 — The ETF Industry's Obligation: Keeping It From Going Extractive 01:07:13 — Where to Find Dave Nadig: ETF Zoo Podcast, Excess Returns & More #ETF #ETFinvesting #DaveNadig #ETFcom #RaiseYourAverage #PassiveInvesting #MutualFunds #PrivateCredit #Tokenization #MarketStructure #LeveredETF #CoveredCallETF #PredictionMarkets #InvestingEducation #WealthManagement #FinancialAdvisors #ETFbubble #PortfolioConstruction #AIinvesting #IndexFunds