The $59 billion Boston-based investment company co-founded by Jeremy Grantham filed an application with US regulators for its first ETF, dubbed the GMO U.S. Quality ETF, on Monday. The actively-managed fund would trade under the ticker QLTY and invest in stocks that GMO “believes to be of high quality,” the filing details.
“We’re clearly seeing every money manager out there realize they need a strategy in an ETF wrapper,” said Todd Sohn, ETF strategist at Strategas. “Their success will be defined by their performance ability as well as if they can succeed in the marketing aspect. That is, why allocate to their actively managed product versus a standard smart-beta strategy?”