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Masters in Business

At The Money: Finding Alpha via Unique ETF Strategies

Masters in Business

Bloomberg

Entrepreneurship, Investing, Business

4.42.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 20 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you want market performance (beta), you buy broad index funds. But what if you want to use a portion of your portfolio to try to beat the market (alpha)? One option is to pursue alpha via quantitative ETFs.
 
Wes Gray is a quant and former military intelligence analyst who is CIO/CEO of Alpha Architect. The firm specializes in specific quant ETFs.
 
Each week, “At the Money” discusses an important topic in money management. From portfolio construction to taxes and cutting down on fees, join Barry Ritholtz to learn the best ways to put your money to work.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Bloomberg Audio Studios

0:04.2

Podcasts Radio News

0:07.1

I'm led to be with you

0:12.0

but I still haven't found

0:17.4

what I'm looking for Index funds have dominated capital flows since the great financial crisis.

0:37.4

One of the rare exceptions is the pursuit of alpha via quant funds.

0:42.9

These create very specific return characteristics that aim at somewhat different goals than the big broad indexes.

0:51.8

I'm Barry Rittholtz, and on today's edition of At the Money, we're going to

0:56.3

discuss how to pursue Alpha through exchange traded funds. To help us unpack all of this and what

1:03.2

it means for your portfolio, let's bring in Wes Gray of Alpha Architect. He's a quant who also

1:10.2

specializes in ETFTF constructions.

1:13.2

Wes also runs ETF architect.

1:15.8

So let's start very basically, Wes.

1:18.2

When you talk about Alpha in an ETF wrapper,

1:21.7

what do you actually mean?

1:22.9

Are we talking about excess returns over cap-weighted beta,

1:26.9

or is it something else?

1:29.1

Yes. So let me frame it because alpha is obviously a loaded word and can mean a lot of things to a lot of

1:34.7

people. On one extreme, you got Jim Simons, you know, busts now 50% returns with no risk. But guess what?

1:41.8

You are never going to be offered this ever in your life, period,

1:46.0

because if I could do that, I would just manage my own money and become a billionaire, right?

1:50.1

The alpha for the rest of us, at least in my mind, is it's basically delivering unique

...

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