FLSP vs IALT

FLSPAFranklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

IALTBiShares Systematic Alternatives Active 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.

IALT Hedge-fund-style machinery in an ETF wrapper: IALT runs long and short across global asset classes, with quant models hunting mispricings instead of an index calling the shots. It launched in 2025 and is already a multi-billion-dollar fund.

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.

IALT The Fund seeks long-term total return through global asset classes and diversified alternative strategies. It combines long and short strategies and uses quantitative, model-driven methods to identify potentially mispriced securities and asset classes.

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.

• IALT Goes both ways. Long and short positions across global asset classes, with quantitative models picking what looks mispriced rather than an index setting the lineup.
• Spread is the point. Roughly 1,800 positions across global markets and multiple asset classes, so no single name or region carries the fund.
• Strategies like this usually live in private funds. Here it is a 1940 Act ETF that trades on an exchange all day, and it is an actively traded, multi-billion-dollar fund.

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.

• IALT At 0.99%, it costs several times what plain allocation funds charge (AOA at 0.19%, NTSX at 0.20%). The fee buys the short book and the models, not market exposure.
• Shorting cuts both ways, and a model rather than a benchmark makes the calls. Results can sit far from a standard stock-and-bond mix in either direction.
• It opened in December 2025, so there is little history showing how the models handle a full market cycle. Distributions come once or twice a year, not monthly.

Full FLSP profile⁠

Full IALT profile⁠