Douglas Yones has left his role as head of exchange-traded products at the New York Stock Exchange to serve as CEO of ETF provider Direxion. The company specializes in offering leveraged, inverse and non-traditional ETFs.
Yones said he has gotten to know Direxion's management team over the past nine years as part of his work with NYSE asset managers. He was excited about the opportunity to work for the company and focus on helping develop new products in the ETF space. As CEO, he will be responsible for leading the strategic vision and growth plan for the company.
“ETFs continue year after year to break records in industry growth, growth in assets under management, growth in adoption,” Yones said. “And that's happening not just here in the US, but it's really starting to happen around the world. One of the best things about Direxion is that they have always been a leader in the space when it comes to new product development, new product ideas, as well as being a traditional US-domiciled asset manager with a really big global footprint.
“ETFs are becoming more complex in nature,” he added. “ETFs are continuing to move toward leveraged, toward structured products. Given Direxion's footprint and leadership in that space, it just makes a lot of sense that we're going to be in a great position to continue to lead the industry and continue to grow at a fairly significant rate.”
He confirmed that in its growth plans, Direxion “will continue to build on our strengths”, which include leveraged, inverse and structured product ETFs.
Direxion's ETFs hold $44.37 billion in total net assets, with an asset growth rate of 10.69%. Some of its best performing products this year include ETF Direction Work From Home, which focuses on the technology sector and has delivered a total return of 14.52% year-to-date; Stocks Direction Daily AAPL Bull 2Xwhich focuses on leveraged capital and has delivered 33.02% in total return year-to-date; AND Direxion Daily 20+ Ys TRSY Bear 3X ETFwith a focus on reverse debt and a year-to-date return of 28.69%. On the other hand, Direxion Daily FTSE China Bear 3X ETFwith a focus on reverse equity, posted a loss of 69.16% so far this year.
An October report on Direxion from research firm Morningstar notes that the company demonstrates long-term stability and a strong investment culture with minimal portfolio management turnover. However, in Morningstar's view, the firm's products have had a low success rate. Based on a five-year risk-adjusted success ratio, only 25% of Direxion's products performed better than the average scores in their respective categories.
Yones' position at the NYSE, which he has held since 2015, includes overseeing the listings and operations teams responsible for ETPs, closed-end funds and SPACs. According to his LinkedIn profile, teams led by Yones assist asset managers with product and index development, regulatory guidance and legal support. Prior to joining the NYSE in 2015, Yones spent 17 years at The Vanguard Group, including as head of ETF product management and head of ETFs for Vanguard Investments Asia.
In recent years, Yones also hosted several episodes of WealthManagement.com's Inside the ETF Podcast.
With Yones' departure, Tim Reilly will assume Yones' responsibilities at the NYSE as head of exchange-traded solutions. In this role, he will lead the products and exchange-traded bond businesses. Reilly will also continue to facilitate trading advisory services across the exchange.
Before taking over for Yones, Reilly spent more than five years at the NYSE, most recently serving as senior director of markets. Prior to this role, he held the positions of senior director, head of sales and relationship management, and senior director and head of institutional capital. Prior to joining the NYSE in October 2019, Reilly served as head of New York platform sales with Liquidnet, an institutional investment network that connects asset managers with liquidity, and as managing director and head of equity and fintech sales with the broker and agency-only technology firm. ITG. He also spent 14 years in various positions at Citi.