Defiance launches autism ETF; quantum fund nears $6B

Last week, Defiance ETFs launched the Defiance Autism Impact ETF (ASD), the first exchange-traded fund focused on companies that develop therapies, diagnostics and technologies for people with autism.

Defiance committed to donate 100% of ASD’s net profits to autism-focused nonprofits for the fund’s first two years and at least 50% of annual net profits in subsequent years.

ASD uses an index-based structure and tracks the Autism Impact Index. VettaFi LLC serves as the index provider and receives a licensing fee; VettaFi is not the issuer, sponsor, endorser or seller of the ETF.

Defiance described a passive, diversified approach as preferable for an early-stage sector, arguing a thematic basket lowers the risk of picking individual winners. Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer of Defiance ETFs, described the launch as “personally meaningful.”

At the same time, the Defiance Quantum ETF (QTUM) is approaching $6 billion in assets after returns of roughly 40% to 45% year-to-date and more than 80% over the past year. QTUM was the first dedicated quantum computing ETF to reach the market.

Federal action added momentum for the quantum sector: the U.S. administration announced about $2 billion in funding for domestic quantum computing initiatives, including awards to companies such as IBM.

Defiance reported total assets rising from roughly $1 billion in late 2022 to more than $13 billion currently and now manages about 80 ETFs. Executives noted plans for additional launches tied to space-related companies and to potential industry initial public offerings.

Other recent strategies include the Efficient Market Portfolio Plus ETF (EMPB) from NextGen EMP. EMPB is a long/short fund-of-funds that uses a proprietary algorithm to identify relative sector strength. Company data indicate the fund targets maximum drawdowns of 10% with 95% confidence and shows a Sharpe ratio of 2.2 compared with the S&P 500’s 0.8 to 0.9. Since inception, EMPB is up more than 30%, outperforming the S&P 500 by about nine percentage points.

ASD and QTUM are listed and available to investors on the exchange.