CBLS vs FLSP

CBLSDClough Hedged Equity ETF

FLSPAFranklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

In short

CBLS A real long book paired with a real short book, wrapped in an everyday ETF. Live since 2020, it lets an active manager bet on the stocks he likes and against the ones he doesn't, and it charges hedge-fund-adjacent money to do it.

FLSP A hedge-fund style trade in an ETF wrapper. FLSP goes long and short across value, momentum and carry rather than just owning cheap stocks, which makes it the odd one out in a cohort of long-only factor funds.

Stated mandate

CBLS The Fund is an actively managed ETF that seeks returns by buying securities the adviser views as financially strong, undervalued, or capable of growth, while shorting securities the adviser expects to decline.

FLSP The fund uses a top-down risk-premia strategy focused on value, momentum, and carry factors, taking both long and short positions.

Why people hold it

• CBLS Actual shorting, not a synthetic proxy: the adviser buys names it views as undervalued, financially strong or growing, and sells short the ones it expects to fall.
• Hedge-fund mechanics in a 1940 Act fund: daily pricing on an exchange, no lockups, no accreditation gate, disclosed holdings.
• Trading since November 2020, so there is a multi-year, real-money record across sharply different markets to judge, not a backtest.
• No index to hug. The balance between longs and shorts moves with the manager's judgment rather than a rulebook.

• FLSP Runs both long and short positions, so the outcome hinges on the gap between the stocks it likes and the ones it doesn't, not purely on the market's direction.
• Three return sources under one ticker: value, momentum and carry, blended top-down instead of stacked onto a single stock screen.
• Spreads the bet across roughly 300 positions, so no single name carries the fund.
• Live since 2019 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund, with the daily liquidity and transparency of an ETF wrapper around a strategy usually sold in private vehicles.

Worth knowing

• CBLS The 1.89% expense ratio is the loudest fact in the file, at the high end of the alternatives shelf next to peers such as QALT (0.80%) and RNMN (0.59%).
• Thinly traded, so bid-ask spreads and order type matter far more here than with a mega-cap index fund.
• Results ride on one team's stock calls, and the short book carries borrow costs plus the risk of losing on both sides at once.

• FLSP At 0.65% a year it costs multiples of plain-vanilla factor peers like VONV (0.06%) and FNDX (0.25%). That is the price tag on the long/short machinery.
• No public index sits behind it, so there is no external yardstick to check it against, and results can look nothing like a US stock index in either direction.
• Distributions land once or twice a year, not on a monthly rhythm.

Full CBLS profile⁠

Full FLSP profile⁠