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For those who don’t know me, I’m Mike, and I’ve been in the ETF industry for over 25 years (I know, I don’t look a day over 24). Throughout my career, I’ve learned that the key to mastering anything, especially the markets, is having discipline and a solid process. That’s why I want to share the three key daily reports on our content site that are modeled after my own process for tracking the ETF world.
Here’s a look at my daily workflow, which is now available to all of you. The video above provides a complete walk-through of the process, and this summary serves as a quick guide to the three key reports I cover, including how to use the free links to our member site.
1. The Morning Read: Daily Review & Preview
Every morning before the market opens, I start with this report. It’s simple: what happened yesterday across the markets, viewed entirely through the lens of ETFs? Since there’s an ETF for nearly every index or composite out there, it’s the most practical way to see what’s moving.
The report gives you a quick macro overview and then dives into performance across different categories: U.S. size and style, sectors, international markets, fixed income, commodities, and crypto. You can quickly see which areas were outliers—like large-cap growth holding strong while small-cap value sold off.
Every ticker and section is hyperlinked, so if something sparks your interest, you can click to dive directly into our free, in-depth research pages and dashboards for real-time stats, flows, and performance data. It takes about three minutes to read and sets you up perfectly for the day ahead.
2. Follow the Money: The Flows Report
Next, also published before the market opens, is the Flows Report. This one is all about answering the question, “Where did the money go yesterday?” From my days as head of ETFs for a mid-sized issuer, I can tell you that the only way to stay on top of industry trends is to track the outliers. That’s why this report is designed to be outlier-driven, cutting through the noise to show you what’s really moving. We highlight which asset classes, brands, and individual funds saw the most significant or unusual inflows and outflows.
We call it “high velocity”—funds that saw a huge percentage of their AUM move in a single day. For example, we recently spotted a pattern of massive, back-and-forth trades in several single-stock ETFs from Defiance. This report is how you spot those interesting, under-the-radar stories and understand institutional movements. It’s an essential tool for issuers, and we also build custom versions of these reports dedicated to specific ETF issuers and their unique competitive lists.
3. The End-of-Day Wrap-Up: The Most Active Snapshot
Finally, at the end of the day, I look at our Most Active report. Before money officially “flows,” it trades. Volume is the precursor to flows, and tracking it is crucial. ETFs are the go-to tool for everyone from retail investors to the world’s largest institutions to make quick asset allocation decisions.
This report summarizes the day’s trading activity, highlighting categories and specific tickers that traded at a much higher volume than their 30-day average. These volume spikes highlight developing market narratives and let you know where to focus your attention—if a country ETF sees massive relative volume, there’s likely a headline to support why. This activity helps you see where the action is happening in real-time and often predicts what you’ll see in the Flows Report in the days ahead, as create/redeem activity can lag while market makers clean up their books.
By incorporating these three reports into your daily routine, you’ll develop the process and discipline needed to spot trends faster and stay consistently on top of the ETF market. Hope you find this workflow as valuable as I do!
Disclosures
This material is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. All investments, including ETFs, involve risk, including the possible loss of principal. Investors should consider their investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses carefully before investing.
This analysis was developed by the team at ETF Action. We leverage advanced AI tools to assist in the drafting and refinement of our content, based on our expert prompts, direction, and final review.
