Non-transparent ETFs Have Been Struggling, Elon Musk Making Many Changes To Twitter, Pfizer COVID-19 Revenues Rise

Summary:

• Since non-transparent ETFs were introduced two years ago, they have had difficulty gaining popularity.
• Elon Musk continues to make Twitter changes.
• Tuesday saw Pfizer increase its Covid-19 vaccine sales projection.

Non-transparent ETFs

Since the initial products were introduced two years ago, non-transparent ETFs have had difficulty gaining popularity among investors, according to data. According to Bryan Armour, director of passive strategies research for North America at Morningstar, portfolio-shielding ETFs had $4.4 billion in assets as of September 30, making up around 1.5% of the active ETF market. However, according to Morningstar data, only one ETF, the $2.1 billion Nuveen Growth Opportunities ETF, has roughly half of those assets.

After attracting attention from companies including BlackRock, Capital Group, Nuveen, Columbia Threadneedle, and American Century, non-transparent ETFs were given regulatory permission in December 2019. On March 31, 2020, American Century introduced the first actively managed non-transparent ETFs. According to the American Century website, the Focused Dynamic Growth ETF currently has $121 million and the Focused Large Cap Value ETF currently has $200 million.

According to Armour, non-transparent ETFs have seen a decline in market share among active ETFs this year. According to him, active ETFs have organically increased by 19.8% year to date through September, outpacing non-active ETFs by 11.7 percentage points. Non-transparent ETFs have had a difficult time amassing assets in part because large broker-dealers have been reluctant to add the products to their systems. UBS, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management all announced this year that they will begin providing a limited selection of portfolio-shielding ETFs on their platforms.

Overall, Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, stated that investor response to opaque ETFs has been "lukewarm at best" and "downright cold" at worst.

Portfolio-shielding active ETFs struggle to gain ground https://t.co/ksLUzKPPkN

— Finance News (@ftfinancenews) November 1, 2022

Twitter CEO continuing to make changes

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Twitter Inc., which billionaire Elon Musk acquired last week, will no longer permit customers of its Blue service to see content without advertisements. In June of last year, Twitter Blue, the platform's first subscription service that provided exclusive access to premium features including the ability to edit tweets, was introduced. Subscribers had access to some publishers' articles without being interrupted by adverts through the service. Last month, the social media site in the US made an edit option available to premium subscribers.

According to news sources, Twitter is preparing additional modifications to its $4.99 per month Blue subscription tier, including adding user authentication. Musk added that charging a charge was the best way to "fight the bots & trolls" in a response to author Stephen King on Tuesday, asking if $8 was a price he would pay to be a verified user.

$TWTR platform changes under Elon Musk “is literally like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks,” @binance CEO @cz_binance says, adding: “There should be new features every month, every week, every day.” pic.twitter.com/iUsW6pGH9C

— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) November 1, 2022

Pfizer revenue rises due to increase in COVID-19 vaccine sales

Tuesday saw Pfizer increase its Covid-19 vaccine sales projection by $2 billion to $34 billion as higher pricing offset a drop in demand outside of the US. The US manufacturer claimed that high sales of several of its other medications and its bivalent booster, which targets the dominant strain of the Omicron type, helped it to somewhat offset the negative effects of a strong dollar.

As a consequence of third-quarter results that exceeded analysts' estimates and allayed fears about waning demand for Covid products, the business kept its full-year target of $22 billion for sales of the Covid antiviral medication Paxlovid. Shares of Pfizer increased 3.5% in pre-market trading to reach $48.10.

Pfizer reported third-quarter sales of $22.6 billion, which were more than experts had anticipated but were down 6% from the same period a year earlier when the pandemic was at its worst. The business raised its estimate for full-year 2022 earnings to a range between $6.40 and $6.50 per share. Additionally, it reduced its projected revenue to a range of $99.5 billion to $102 billion.

💉 Pfizer raises revenue view on higher-than-expected Covid-19 vaccine sales https://t.co/XlgVgQiGGl via @WSJ $PFE is +3.22% in pre-market trading.

— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) November 1, 2022

Sources: Twitter.com, ft.com, finance.yahoo.com