Key Takeaways
- • Simplify Asset Management launched the Simplify Brookwood Global Macro ETF (ticker GMAC), a new actively managed fund offering flexible global macro exposure across asset classes.
- • GMAC is sub-advised by Brookwood Investment Group, which oversees over $1.5 billion in assets according to the firm's disclosure, and targets absolute returns through long and short positions.
- • The fund can invest across commodities, natural resources, energy, metals and mining, agriculture, industrials, utilities, real estate, managed futures, risk parity, and long/short equity.
- • Simplify positions GMAC as a foundational building block for a liquid alternatives allocation, sitting outside the traditional 60/40 portfolio framework.
- • The fund is new with limited operating history, uses futures and swaps, and carries leverage, short-position, counterparty, and non-diversification risks.
Summary
Simplify Asset Management, a New York-based ETF provider, announced the launch of the Simplify Brookwood Global Macro ETF (GMAC), according to a Business Wire release. The fund is sub-advised by Brookwood Investment Group, an independent registered investment advisory firm that the release describes as overseeing more than $1.5 billion in assets and supporting over 75 advisors serving more than 6,200 clients nationwide.
GMAC seeks strong positive returns regardless of market direction by identifying opportunities across asset types. Per the release, the strategy can take long or short positions across commodities, natural resources, energy, metals and mining, agriculture, industrials, utilities, and real estate, as well as managed futures, risk parity, long/short equity, and other alternative strategies. Brookwood will opportunistically adjust exposures based on its analysis of inflation, interest rates, monetary policy, regulatory shifts, and the political environment globally.
The ETF will primarily obtain exposure through ETFs, including affiliated ETFs, and through swaps referencing the returns of underlying assets. Simplify chief investment officer David Berns said the product gives investors a single vehicle to access a broad range of alternative strategies and asset classes without being tied to the traditional 60/40 framework, and described it as the first time Brookwood's approach has been offered in an ETF wrapper. Christopher R. Coolidge, CFA, chief investment officer at Brookwood, said navigating current conditions requires looking across asset classes and an active, nimble approach.
The prospectus risk disclosures highlight several considerations: the fund is actively managed and new with limited history; it is non-diversified; it may hold foreign securities; and its use of futures and swaps introduces leverage, roll, contango or backwardation, and counterparty risks. Short positions carry theoretically unlimited loss potential. Investors are directed to the prospectus before investing.
GMAC seeks strong positive returns regardless of market direction by identifying opportunities across asset types. Per the release, the strategy can take long or short positions across commodities, natural resources, energy, metals and mining, agriculture, industrials, utilities, and real estate, as well as managed futures, risk parity, long/short equity, and other alternative strategies. Brookwood will opportunistically adjust exposures based on its analysis of inflation, interest rates, monetary policy, regulatory shifts, and the political environment globally.
The ETF will primarily obtain exposure through ETFs, including affiliated ETFs, and through swaps referencing the returns of underlying assets. Simplify chief investment officer David Berns said the product gives investors a single vehicle to access a broad range of alternative strategies and asset classes without being tied to the traditional 60/40 framework, and described it as the first time Brookwood's approach has been offered in an ETF wrapper. Christopher R. Coolidge, CFA, chief investment officer at Brookwood, said navigating current conditions requires looking across asset classes and an active, nimble approach.
The prospectus risk disclosures highlight several considerations: the fund is actively managed and new with limited history; it is non-diversified; it may hold foreign securities; and its use of futures and swaps introduces leverage, roll, contango or backwardation, and counterparty risks. Short positions carry theoretically unlimited loss potential. Investors are directed to the prospectus before investing.
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