The folks at a Chicago area, $218-billion-AUMS (as of February 29) fund firm are teaming up with a familiar ally for a new active, options-powered ETF.

Ryan O. Issakainen First Trust Portfolios L.P. Senior Vice President, ETF Strategist

Last month, Ryan Issakainen, senior vice president and ETF strategist at First Trust Advisors L.P. [profile], and Jeff Chang, president of Vest Financial LLC, unveiled the launch of the FT Vest Dow Jones Internet & Target Income ETF (FDND on the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.). The new fund is a series of First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund IV.

FDND's inception date was March 20, and the fund comes with an expense ratio of 75 basis points. As of March 28, the new ETF had $1.015 million in AUM.

Wheaton, Illinois-based First Trust serves as FDND's investment advisor and fund reporting agent, and McLean, Virginia-based Vest serves as subadvisor. The new fund's PM team includes two Vest managing directors: Howard Rubin and Karan Sood.

The new ETF is part of First Trust's $18-billion-AUM (as of February 29) "target outcome ETFs" suite. FDND is designed to provide investors with annualized income of about eight percent higher than the current annual dividend yield of the Nasdaq 100 Index.

Issakainen describes the launch of FDND as enabling investors "to effectively harvest some of the volatility inherent in internet stocks by selling call options against a portion of its holdings." Chang notes that FDND is an extension of the target income partial covered call strategy that the Vest team first launched in 2017.

"For the first time, investors can collect current income while still potentially participating in some of the price appreciation of the stocks in the Dow Jones Internet Composite Index," Chang states.

FDND's other service providers include: the Bank of New Yok Mellon as administrator, custodian, fund accounting agent, and transfer agent; Chapman and Cutler LLP as counsel; Deloitte & Touche LLP as independent accounting firm; and First Trust Portfolios L.P. as distributor. 

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