What does the invention of stocks in the Netherlands and the 1600s have to do with

whether cryptocurrency is a new asset class?

Stay tuned to this podcast to explore the connection.

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That's Bloomberg Live.com slash sustainable biz Singapore. It seems that every year a different investment theme bubbles to the surface this year it's

artificial intelligence last year it was the metaverse before that it was fracking

in oil gold gold, Bitcoin, work your way back through history.

Every now and again, a different idea catches investors' intention because of the performance of the underlying stocks.

I'm Barry Ritholz and on today's edition of At the Money,

we're going to discuss how to engage with thematic investing.

To help us unpack all of this and what it means for your portfolio, let's bring in Jan Vanek.

He is the CEO of Vanek funds, which manages about a hundred billion dollars in client assets.

So let's start out with the basics.

What is thematic investing?

I would say it's really a specialized part of the market, right?

It could be a group of stocks, it could be a group of, it could be a country, it could be an

industry, a very, very focused part of the market so let me give you a great

example of thematic investing back in 1968 your dad began one of the very

first gold funds in the United States right before that 1970s

...