Finance

KKM Financial’s Essential 40 stock fund is now an ETF

Published

4 months ago

October 21, 2024

Business Finance News

The Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, US, on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024.

Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

KKM Financial has converted its Essential 40 mutual fund into an ETF, joining the growing shift by asset managers to a more tax-efficient fund model.

ETFs make it easier for investors and financial advisors with taxable accounts to choose when to create capital gains or losses. This differs from mutual funds, which can sometimes hit their investors with an unwanted tax bill due to withdrawals or portfolio changes.

“When you look at the tax efficiency of an ETF compared to a mutual fund, it is much more advantageous,” said Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM and a CNBC contributor. “A lot of the wealth advisors that I work with really have issues with the capital gain distribution typical to a mutual fund.”

Many asset managers have been converting their mutual funds to ETFs in recent years, due in part to a 2019 SEC rule change that made it easier to run active investment strategies within an ETF. The number of active equity mutual funds has fallen to its lowest level in 24 years, according to Strategas.

More broadly, many asset managers are pushing the SEC to allow ETFs to be added as a separate share class within existing mutual funds.

The newly-converted KKM fund will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker ESN. The goal of the Essential 40 is to allow investors to “buy what you use” in one equal-weighted fund, according to Kilburg. Its holdings include JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, Waste Management and Eli Lilly, according to FactSet.

“We believe without these companies, the U.S. economy would be hindered, or would be in trouble,” he said.

The old mutual fund version of the Essential 40 had a three star rating from Morningstar. Its best relative performance in recent years came in 2022, when it declined less than 11% — much better than the category average of about 17%, according to Morningstar.

Equal-weighted funds can often outperform market-cap weighted indexes during downturns. They’ve also been a popular strategy this year, due in part to concerns that the market was too reliant on the so-called Magnificent 7 stocks. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) has brought in more than $14 billion in new investor funds this year, according to FactSet.

In 2024, the KKM fund was up about 16% year to date before its conversion, with roughly $70 million in assets, according to FactSet.

The ETF will have a net expense ratio of 0.70%, equal to that of the old mutual fund.

Finance

Anthropic closes in on $3.5 billion funding round

Published

46 minutes ago

February 24, 2025

Business Finance News

Dario Amodei, Anthropic CEO, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, 2025.

Gerry Miller | CNBC

Anthropic is in talks to raise a $3.5 billion funding round, significantly more than the amount previously expected, CNBC has confirmed.

The round would roughly triple the artificial intelligence startup’s valuation to $61.5 billion, according to two sources familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public. Lightspeed Ventures is leading the funding, with participation from General Catalyst and others, the sources said.

The financing, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, signals continued investor demand for top-tier AI companies, even in the face of potential disruption from China’s DeepSeek. Anthropic is backed by Amazon and Google, and had initially set out to raise $2 billion, according to a source.

Anthropic declined to comment.

The company’s last private market valuation was $18 billion. Amazon has poured $8 billion into the startup.

Anthropic was founded by early OpenAI employees and is the creator of the popular chatbot Claude. Earlier Monday, Anthropic released what it says is it’s “most intelligent AI model yet. Its so-called hybrid model combines an ability to reason — or stopping to think about complex answers — with a traditional model that spits out answers in real time.

WATCH: Anthropic unveils newest AI model

Amazon-backed Anthropic unveils newest AI-model

Finance

Jamie Dimon calls U.S. government ‘inefficient,’ touts Elon Musk’s DOGE effort

Published

2 hours ago

February 24, 2025

Business Finance News

Watch CNBC's full interview with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Monday said the U.S. government is inefficient and in need of work as the Trump administration terminates thousands of federal employees and works to dismantle agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Dimon was asked by CNBC’s Leslie Picker whether he supported efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He declined to give what he called a “binary” response, but made comments that supported the overall effort.

“The government is inefficient, not very competent, and needs a lot of work,” Dimon told Picker. “It’s not just waste and fraud, its outcomes.”

The Trump administration’s effort to rein in spending and scrutinize federal agencies “needs to be done,” Dimon added.

“Why are we spending the money on these things? Are we getting what we deserve? What should we change?” Dimon said. “It’s not just about the deficit, its about building the right policies and procedures and the government we deserve.”

Dimon said if DOGE overreaches with its cost-cutting efforts or engages in activity that’s not legal, “the courts will stop it.”

“I’m hoping it’s quite successful,” he said.

In the wide-ranging interview, Dimon also addressed his company’s push to have most workers in office five days a week, as well as his views on the Ukraine conflict, tariffs and the U.S. consumer.