Remy: While the S&P 500 and NASDAQ closing at new record highs yesterday, its 28th record high of the year. At the same time, we are looking at the major stock averages pulling back today, but keep in mind megacap heavyweights are doing almost all of the heavy lifting. While tech giants like Nvidia and Apple drive the main benchmark to new peaks, the equal weighted S&P 500 still sits 4.6% below its own all-time high. And not surprisingly, single stock leverage ETF. And tactical trading tools are seeing record volumes. Well, joining us here to break down active trader dynamics is Bilal Little, global ETF strategist for direction. Well, great to have you here, Bilal. Thanks so much for joining me.
Bilal Little: Good to see you, Remy. Thanks for having me.
Remy: Well, today all eyes are on the markets, but we have to keep in mind that there is a lot happening on the macro front, and we're keeping an eye on treasury yields. So today we're counting down to the bond auction as well as the release of the Fed meeting minutes. So give us. Take on what you're seeing.
Bilal Little: Yeah, look, the market is already priced in that they'll likely pause in October. The jobs report on last Friday didn't come out obviously as expected. Right now investors are trying to figure out, are we looking at basically record highs or is the bond market driving, right? So it's yields sitting at obviously 5.3 on the 10 year, 5.7 on the 30 year, and as those yields retreat, you get a little reprieve on the equity side. And then when they go back up, then obviously equity selloff futures are obviously slightly lower or flat today. That is, I think, a good example of where investors feel. They don't feel a lot of real comfort right now, and I would say sentiment is actually pretty weak.
Remy: Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up because we're here at a stock twits event and we're talking about active traders, retail investors, and they keep a close eye. On what's moving markets and they're very active in their community. So what do you make of the trends that we're seeing, especially when it comes to passive versus active?
Bilal Little: Yeah, you know, I looked at an interesting stat. If you looked at flows over the last week or so, just looking at ETF flows, 4 out of the 5 categories were bond funds. Really interesting. The number one bond fund category was municipal bonds. So right now there is a psychological trade happening, I would say in the broader market. Obviously equity volume trading volumes are not high, so we are in a very narrow trading market. There are a handful of names that are driving, and I'll point to two stocks. You can point to Marvell, you can point to, uh, Micron. Those stocks still haven't hit their June peaks, although we continue to see some continued momentum and movement. And even with Nvidia, obviously it grinded a little higher to its all-time. High, you're not seeing this massive tailwind behind equities, and you continue to see institutional capital as well as retail capital really start to make that psychological trade and say now I want to be paid to make an investment, and I think that's where markets are landing right now.
Remy: Yeah, absolutely, Bill. I'm so glad that you mentioned that. And for our viewers out there who are watching at the nation's airport gates and they see these headlines about, oh, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq. 100 hitting record highs, but you mentioned this word which is narrow. And when we're hearing about names such as Nvidia about to enter that $6 trillion market cap, you know, there are a lot of thoughts that go through an investor's head. So when it comes to what's actually happening, what are the key takeaways and what is sentiment really telling you?
Bilal Little: Yeah, look, I think the real story should be patient capital wins in the long run. Right now investors should be focused on three things. One, they should say, hey, Where can I be compensated in the market? Obviously that's in different parts to barbell the fixed income allocation if you're gonna, if you have one. The second is I would be broadly diversified in my equity risk thinking about one this narrow trader where we are, but is there value across the spectrum? A great example is, is there international, uh, could international be one of the areas that we can allocate to it's trading at a 25-30% discount to US equities. Another area that we are focused on is as markets start to top out, what you will see, and I'm not saying that this is the end of a bull market, we're still very bullish on our end. You will see basically option premium really start to open up and create an income opportunity for investors. So investors that are looking to trade around, obviously these growth names, they're likely going to pick up some income from an option premium, and that's one of the things that we've been talking to investors about.
Remy: And of course looking for direction at direction. So I have to ask you about leverage funds as well as tactical for viewers out there. What are the risks as well as opportunities?
Bilal Little: Yeah, the one thing that I think we need to continue to focus on is investor education when it comes to leverage. These are For high precision, high conviction traders one thinking about very short term tactical trading opportunities. So if you wanna trade around energy or if you wanna trade around healthcare, if you wanna trade around obviously semis, that's where investors look to us to really help provide those precision tools. Most importantly, we've added daily in all of our trading products. The focus is to help these investors and traders know you can trade in these products on a daily basis, but you don't. Have to hold them for the day. You can trade in a 5 or 10 or 15 minute trading block based off of where your convictions are. So we continue to focus on that. The areas that I'm seeing right now, a lot of investors are trading around Micron, they're trading around Marvell, they're still trading around Tesla, right? They're trading around SpaceX. So we are one of the largest single stock providers in that space, and that's where we continue to see a lot of momentum.
Remy: And finally, Bilal, before I let you go, hard to believe, but we are in. Final quarter of 2026 and we're counting down to 27 so it seems too early to think ahead, but when it comes to product innovation, what are you focused on that direction?
Bilal Little: I would say probably two things that really sort of stick out to me. One is obviously anthropic. That is a story that everyone's focused on. So obviously we have a public filing out there that is listed on our website as well. So we want to actually provide traders and investors an opportunity there. Another is we're thinking about long term investing as we continue to innovate. Innovation also means we need to lean into the investors so we have those authentic conversations and one of the things that they ask from us is, can we build a high quality S&P product in which we've been leaning into, which is the US 500 plus ETF which actually was just filed and launched and it's coming to market, it's SPXP and we're really excited about that because. That's blending two very unique return sources, the S&P 500 and managed futures into a wrap vehicle underneath an ETF without a K1. So we're really excited about some of these opportunities that are coming to market.
Remy: Well, Bilal, I'm sure we'll be having conversations about that as we head into year end. So thank you so much for your time, and I hope you have many authentic conversations here at Stocktoberfest today.
Bilal Little: Oh, I'm pumped about this. Thank you so much, Bilal. I appreciate you. Thank you.
