FLSP vs HFGM

FLSPAFranklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

HFGMCUnlimited HFGM Global Macro ETF

In short

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.

HFGM Most macro funds pick their own trades. HFGM reverse-engineers what global macro hedge funds are already positioned in, then runs that book at roughly twice the sector's volatility. Replication, with the dial turned up.

Stated mandate

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

HFGM The Fund seeks capital appreciation by using a proprietary algorithm to build long and short positions in broad-based ETFs and futures, seeking to match recent gross returns of hedge funds’ Global Macro sector while targeting approximately twice its volatility.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• HFGM A proprietary algorithm infers what the global macro hedge fund sector is positioned in, then rebuilds those exposures with long and short broad-based ETFs and futures.nasdaq.com
• Charges 1.01%, gross and net, with no waiver in the mix. That sits below the alternatives category median, though peers like QALT (0.80%) and IALT (0.99%) ask less.
• It can go short as easily as long, across global asset classes, so a bearish macro view is expressed inside the portfolio rather than through the exit.
• Ordinary 1940 Act ETF plumbing: exchange trading and one flat expense ratio, not the subscription windows and performance-fee arithmetic of a private macro fund.nasdaq.com

Worth knowing

• 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.

• HFGM By design it targets about twice the volatility of the hedge fund sector it mirrors. That amplification applies to the down moves too, not just the up ones.
• Launched in April 2025, it is one of the newer names in its category, so there is limited live history for judging how the replication behaves across macro regimes.
• Among the thinner traders in its peer group, which makes the bid-ask spread a bigger slice of the round-trip cost than at the largest alternatives funds.

Full FLSP profile⁠

Full HFGM profile⁠