THE BIG IDEA
We don’t often focus on ETFs in this newsletter. This week we will do some catching up. After all, there are more ETFs than operating companies listed on the stock exchanges, and the numbers are growing every month.
Most of you have full time jobs or other demands on your time and you probably don’t have room in your life to keep up with the latest ETF offerings.
Below, we will highlight four freshly launched ETFs. We are not necessarily recommending that you buy all - or any - of them. This is simply a human curated list of new offerings we found interesting.
Global X LLM ETF
Ticker: LLMA
Launch date: 29 September 2026
If you are not sure which LLM maker to bet on, this is for you. The fund targets companies listed in developed markets, including China, that rank among top independent AI model developers or have a significant financial interest in frontier AI models.
Top holdings: Meta Platforms, Spacex, and Alphabet (Google) currently make up about half of the portfolio.
TappAlpha CBOE Magnificent 10 Growth & Daily Income ETF
Ticker: TMGN
Launch date: 15 July 2026
This one can be complicated to understand. This ETF holds the most liquid tech stocks and then sells short-dated options on those stocks to generate regular income. So, it boosts day-to-day results but limits the potential upside. The results look interesting so far.
Top holdings: The fund holds exactly 10 stocks (Nvidia, AMD, Palantir, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, and Broadcom) in equal amounts.
Astoria International Quality Growth Kings ETF
Ticker: IQGR
Launch date: 15 September 2026
This fund seeks out what it considers to be “quality growth” outside the US. Holdings generally include larger, more established companies across a range of industries.
Top holdings: Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor, SK Hynix, and Banco Comercial Português each make up 2-4% of the fund, which holds 100+ total stocks.
Janus Henderson International Core Alpha ETF
Ticker: JINT
Launch date: 16 September 2026
Sticking with the international theme but aiming for value rather than growth. This fund (mostly) avoids tech stocks. It is more of a low-tech equity play that seeks out established, cash-generating companies instead of fast growers.
Top holdings: The fund contains around 100 stocks. Novartis, Shell, BHP Group, and Allianz are the current top holdings.
SEEN ON THE INTERNETS
Margin debt, money borrowed from your broker in order to buy more stocks, can be a source of fuel for bull markets. Like many things in life, too much of a good thing can end badly.
That’s the situation we are in now, as margin debt is historically high.
Last month, Lars Von Thienen from the Foundation for the Study of Cycles posted a video on YouTube called Leverage On A Clock. The money chart from the video, showing margin debt as a percentage of GDP, is copied below.
The full 39-minute video gets a little wonky about cycles but go for it if you are interested.
The two points we got from it are:
1) The margin ratio tends to peak a couple months before the stock market does.
2) The current feasting on margin debt might continue for another couple of years before reaching the ultimate top.
NUMBERS ONLY
40.3% | The latest AAII investor sentiment survey found 40.3% bulls. This is the most bullish since a 44.9% result the third week of July. |
- 7.41% | TLT, the ETF sometimes considered a benchmark for the U.S. Treasury bond market, is down 7.41% so far this year. And you thought bonds were a safe investment. |
5 | The Russell 2000, home to your favorite small-cap stocks, is down 5 weeks in a row. The money is flowing into the mega-cap stocks. |
SWINGEX INDEX
As of market close on: 9 October 2026
Swingy says: Every day last week was nothing but zeroes. Just like a MAGA rally!
Find out more about how the Swingex Index works here.
WATCHER
Trade ideas highlighted here each week have a timeframe of 3 days to 3 weeks in mind. They are not recommendations to buy or sell. Swing traders should follow up with their own research.
AMLX (Amylyx Pharmaceuticals): Like many other small-cap stocks, AMLX has been on the ass end of an ass-kicking for the last number of weeks. We see signs that the situation is about to change.
Twice last week, the chart printed a bullish candlestick pattern. First a dragonfly doji and then a hammer.
Both are bullish and tell more-or-less the same story. In each case, the market falls to a lower low and then buyers step in to take prices back up to around where they started the day.
Sometimes, one instance of this is enough to put an end to a downtrend. Having two in a short period of time gives us more confidence that some quiet accumulation of shares is underway.
Amateur traders may believe that the gap (in mid-August) must be filled before the shares can rebound. It’s just not true. But that’s not our problem. The near-term trend looks to be up.