The MAGA ETF Has Only One Strategy

Building buzz about a new exchange-traded fund often just means buying newspaper ads. Hal Lambert has a different approach: He’s hitting right-wing talk shows and roaming conservative conferences in a familiar-looking red cap.

That’s because his fund is different, too. Sure, it has an investment thesis, but it’s also a badge for the political identity its stock ticker evokes: MAGA. As in “Make America Great Again.” The ETF not only markets to people loyal to the U.S. president, it also invests in companies that are loyal to his party. Not necessarily the most profitable companies, or the fastest-growing, or the ones with the most attractive price-earnings ratios—or any of a number of metrics a typical investor would use. Instead, it selects companies based on public information about donations to Republican candidates by their employees and political action committees.