Will Rhind

Will Rhind is the founder and CEO of GraniteShares, a firm he launched in 2016 after a career spanning over 20 years in the ETF industry. Will's resume reads like a history of ETFs: he helped launch the first ETFs in Europe at iShares (then Barclays Global Investors), did a successful startup that was ultimately sold to WisdomTree, and served as CEO of the World Gold Council overseeing GLD and other commodity products at State Street. On this episode of Behind the Ticker, Will joins Brad to discuss GraniteShares' single stock leveraged ETF products, including NVDL (1.5x NVIDIA), and the global community of high-conviction investors driving demand for these products.

From GLD to Single Stock Leverage

Will's career arc traces the major innovations in the ETF industry. He was there for the birth of European ETFs, then built and sold a startup, then ran the world's largest gold fund (GLD). Each step taught him something about what investors want and how to build products that serve genuine demand. GraniteShares' pivot to single stock leveraged products came from observing the global appetite for high-conviction, concentrated bets on individual companies.

Will describes GraniteShares' audience as a global community of high-conviction investors. These are typically mobile, have access to online trading accounts through modern brokerages, and know exactly what they want to trade. GraniteShares' job is to make the product accessible and easy to find. The firm's marketing approach is digital-first: heavy investment in PR (which Will acknowledges is old-school but still effective) combined with digital techniques to put products in front of the right audiences.

How Single Stock Leveraged ETFs Work

Will walks through the mechanics. In the simplest form, it's an ETF like any other, but instead of holding stocks directly, it uses swaps (derivatives) to provide leveraged exposure to a single company. For NVDL, the fund provides 1.5x daily exposure to NVIDIA. If NVIDIA goes up 1% in a day, NVDL goes up roughly 1.5%. If NVIDIA goes down 1%, NVDL goes down roughly 1.5%. The leverage resets daily.

Will is transparent about the daily reset mechanism and its implications. Over multi-day periods, the compounding effect means the fund's return will diverge from exactly 1.5x the stock's return. In trending markets (consistent up or down moves), the compounding can work in the investor's favor. In choppy, mean-reverting markets, it works against them. This is why the products are primarily used by short-term traders and high-conviction investors rather than long-term buy-and-hold allocators.

The swap counterparties are major banks that provide the derivative exposure. Will notes that GraniteShares works with multiple counterparties to manage operational risk and ensure capacity. As the firm's products have grown in assets and volume, maintaining diverse counterparty relationships has become increasingly important. NVDL in particular has seen explosive growth driven by NVIDIA's performance as the AI trade's primary beneficiary.

Who's Actually Using These Products

Brad asked about adoption in the registered investment advisor community. Will is realistic: the vast majority of managed portfolio money today is in model portfolios with quarterly rebalancing and long-term horizons. Single stock leveraged products don't naturally fit that use case. Where they do find application is with advisors who still believe their job is to add alpha through active security selection or technical analysis. These are portfolio managers who are actively trading and looking for tools that amplify their conviction.

The broader user base is retail and self-directed traders. Will describes them as sophisticated investors who understand the products and use them tactically. They're often day trading, holding for short periods, or pairing levered positions with hedges. The idea that these are "dangerous" products being used by naive investors doesn't match GraniteShares' actual user data. Volume tends to spike during volatile periods, which makes sense: that's when high-conviction traders see the most opportunity.

GraniteShares' distribution is genuinely global. Will notes that interest comes from investors across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The digital-first marketing approach and modern brokerage infrastructure means geographic barriers to access have largely been eliminated.

Key Takeaways

• GraniteShares' NVDL provides 1.5x daily leveraged exposure to NVIDIA through swaps, with daily reset. The firm uses multiple swap counterparties to manage operational risk and ensure capacity.
• Will's career spans 20+ years including launching the first European ETFs at iShares, building a startup sold to WisdomTree, and running GLD at the World Gold Council.
• The primary user base is a global community of high-conviction, digitally-native investors who use the products tactically for short-term bets. Volume spikes during volatile periods.
• Advisor adoption is limited to those who actively trade for alpha. The products don't fit traditional model portfolios with quarterly rebalancing and long-term horizons.
• Daily leverage reset means multi-day returns diverge from the stated multiple. Trending markets amplify returns favorably; choppy markets work against the compounding effect.

Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.