Under the Hood

The primary-market engine: how APs exchange baskets for shares and keep price glued to NAV.

Who actually stands behind ETF liquidity, what they earn, and why more of them is better.

Why ETFs stray from fair value, when it matters, and how arbitrage pulls them back.

Intraday indicative value: how it's calculated, when it's stale, and what pros use instead.

The metric that actually measures ETF quality — and why it beats staring at TER.

How funds earn extra basis points lending stock, who keeps the revenue, and the risks.

Why a 3,000-stock index fund may hold 1,800 stocks — and track better for it.

Unfunded vs funded swaps, counterparty exposure, UCITS collateral rules and the US-dividend edge.

MSCI, FTSE Russell, S&P DJI and the Solactive challenge: who writes the rules and what they charge.

Free-float weighting, capping rules, buffers and country classification — where returns quietly diverge.

What happens on rebalance day, front-running, and the hidden cost of predictable trades.

GICS vs ICB, sector rotation, and why sector definitions move stocks between funds.

Duration as a lever, YTM vs distribution yield, and bond ETFs vs holding bonds to maturity.

Parking cash in the wrapper: overnight-rate ETFs, T-bill funds and their European swap cousins.

Value, momentum, quality, size, low-vol: the evidence, the products and the long droughts.

Screens, tilts and Paris-aligned benchmarks — plus SFDR labels vs the US regime.

Robotics to clean energy: conviction as a diversified satellite — and how to buy a theme well.

High-yield screens, dividend growth, aristocrats — and the yield traps to avoid.

Fund currency vs trading currency vs exposure currency — what hedging fixes and what it costs.

Dublin vs Luxembourg vs Delaware: treaty networks, and why domicile is a real return driver.

The invisible drag: how dividends get taxed on the way to your fund and how structure reduces it.

Capital gains, qualified dividends, wash sales and tax-loss harvesting for US investors.

Country-by-country reality: Vorabpauschale, UK reporting status, and the acc-vs-dist tax angle.

The in-kind redemption advantage: the single biggest US tax edge, explained step by step.

Diversification limits, eligible assets and why UCITS became the world's export wrapper.

Spreads, swing pricing, lending revenue, taxes and rebalance costs: the full cost stack.

What drives spreads, when they widen, and time-of-day rules that save real money.

The complete retail playbook: limit orders, avoiding the open/close, sizing vs screen depth, and multi-listing choices. [Audience: Retail]

A repeatable 10-point checklist: index, TD, size, spread, domicile, lending, structure, tax.

Getting real answers from justETF, ETF.com, Morningstar and issuer sites.

THE HOUSE FRAMEWORK: a cheap broad core with deliberate, capped satellites — advocated and cross-referenced throughout the book.

Why the classic age-based stock/bond glidepath may not be future-proof — and the alternative: de-risk inside the equity sleeve plus short-duration/money-market, not long bonds. [House perspective, clearly labeled]

Calendar vs threshold vs cash-flow rebalancing: what the evidence supports.

The gap between fund returns and investor returns — and systems that close it.

Decumulation with ETFs: the 4% debate, guardrails and cash buffers.

What robos actually build with ETFs, what they charge, and DIY replication.

Why funds close, warning signs, and exactly what happens to your money.