FLSP vs QIS

FLSPAFranklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

QISDSimplify Multi-QIS Alternative 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.

QIS Investment banks build quant 'risk premia' strategies for pensions and hedge funds. QIS packages a basket of those third-party strategies into an ETF, using total return swaps, aiming for returns that move independently of stocks and bonds.

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.

QIS The fund seeks positive absolute returns and income by investing in a diversified portfolio of quantitative strategies intended to provide an uncorrelated positive source of returns.

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.

• QIS Gets its exposure through total return swaps on third-party bank quant strategies spanning equities, interest rates, commodities and currencies.sec.govsimplify.us
• The mandate is absolute return and income from strategies meant to be uncorrelated with the rest of a portfolio, not to shadow an index.simplify.us
• Delivered in a plain 1940 Act ETF: daily liquidity, no lockups or capital calls, for a strategy set normally sold through institutional swap desks.sec.gov

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.

• QIS At 1.21% a year it runs above the typical alternatives ETF, and cheaper peers exist: QALT at 0.80% and RNMN at 0.59%.
• Returns ride on swap counterparties and outside models, so the drivers are less visible than a stock fund's holdings list.sec.gov
• Launched in 2023, small and thinly traded next to the bigger alternatives funds, so the track record is short and execution costs can bite.

Full FLSP profile⁠

Full QIS profile⁠