There’s a new ETF in town. SPDR SSGA Apollo IG Public & Private Credit ETF (PRIV) will trade Thursday at the NYSE.  

This fund intends to invest at least 80% of its net assets in investment grade debt securities, including a combination of public credit and private credit.  What’s surprising is that there is a significant component of  private equity in the ETF wrapper.  Because private credit is illiquid, it has been a problem getting this in an ETF wrapper, since ETFs need liquidity. 

They are trying to solve this problem by having Apollo provide credit assets and they will purchase those investments back if need be. 

ETFs have owned illiquid investments in the past (there are bank loan ETFs that have illiquid investments) so this is not the first time this issue has been addressed. But Wall Street is eager to provide access to private equity and credit to the masses, and ETFs are the obvious wrapper.

Normally, ETFs are only allowed to own illiquid investments up to 15% of the fund, but the SEC says that in this case private credit can range between 10% and 35%, but can be above or below that.

This filing has been controversial. One early concern was that if Apollo is the only firm providing the liquidity, it naturally raises questions about what type of pricing State Street will get. However, State Street apparently can source from other firms if it can get better prices.

Another issue: Apollo is required to buy back the loans, but only up to a daily limit, and it’s not clear what happens after that. It’s not clear if the market makers would accept private credit instruments for redemption.

Bottom line: This is a groundbreaking but very complicated ETF.  It will be closely monitored for liquidity.

Note:  Anna Paglia, Executive Vice President, Chief Business Officer for State Street Global Advisors, will be on ETF Edge Monday to explain how this ETF works.

The Qatar Investment Authority is leveraging its over-$500 billion in assets to attract venture capital firms to the hydrocarbon-rich state.

The sovereign wealth fund’s $1-billion fund of funds program — which invests in both international and regional VC funds — is designed to bolster investments in areas such as technology and health care, as Qatar looks to diversify away from its dominant oil and gas industry.  

Now, it’s accepted its first group of venture capital fund managers.

B Capital, a tech-focused firm led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, is among the group of VCs set to launch in Doha, opening its first Middle East office in the Qatari capital. It joins Rasmal Ventures, Utopia Capital Management and Builders VC, which have also joined the program.

Raj Ganguly, co-CEO of B Capital, hailed the Gulf state’s approach to artificial intelligence, and its support for the sector, as of particular interest.

“With all the sandboxes that have been created here in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) to trial new types of AI, we think it’s an incredibly exciting time,” Ganguly told CNBC at Web Summit Qatar in Doha on Monday. “We believe innovation can come from anywhere. We want to back founders from the GCC who have a global mindset.”

B Capital, which focuses on enterprise, fintech, health care and climate investments, has over $7 billion in assets under management and says it targets seed to late-stage growth technology investments.

Mohsin Pirzada, head of funds at QIA – a huge sovereign wealth fund with stakes in prize assets ranging from French football team Paris Saint-Germain to London’s Heathrow Airport — told CNBC that the program has a dual investment mandate.

“Firstly, we seek strong commercial returns and secondly, we seek for positive impact across the VC ecosystem in Qatar,” he said.

He added that the fund of funds was looking for VCs looking to deepen their roots in the country. It aims to “have a beneficial impact on the local economy, to boost deal flow in the market and to support the development of a thriving ecosystem underpinned by a strong private sector,” he added.

Market volatility appears to be boosting demand for two types of exchange-traded funds: leveraged and inverse.

And, Direxion CEO and ETF money manager Douglas Yones thinks market conditions will keep fueling demand for them.

“We have a lot of securities in the market that are … up a lot over the last five or 10 years. Market seemingly has been going sideways. We saw Friday’s correction,” he told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “There are people out there that are saying: ‘Hey, maybe I don’t want to be fully invested,’ but also don’t want to take the capital gain on selling a position. What can I do? I can take a long position in a short ETF and inverse ETF. I can basically neutralize my exposure.”

Leveraged and inverse ETFs give investors the opportunity to make monster bets on the stock market’s direction. Investors can go long or short.

Yones’ firm is heavily involved in the space. Yones runs the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL), which is one of the largest leveraged/inverse ETFs. According to FactSet, Broadcom, Nvidia and Qualcomm are among the ETF’s top holdings.

As of Wednesday’s market close, Yones’ ETF is up almost 84% over the past two years, but off 36% over the past year. It’s also down more than 16% over the past week.

“There are market-moving headlines happening two to three times a day. And so, the volatility is growing up, not down,” said Yones. “We think that holds for the whole year.”

VettaFi’s Todd Rosenbluth also sees growing demand for single-stock leveraged ETFs.

“Single-stock leveraged ETFs probably sound hard to wrap your head around. But it’s one stock you get the risk-on or in case of inverse risk-off exposure to that and the liquidity benefits of the ETF wrapper,” the firm’s head of research said.