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 providing leveraged, inverse and non-traditional ETFs.
Yones said he has gotten to know the Direxion leadership team over the past nine years as part of his work with asset managers at the NYSE. 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-over-year to break records in growth of the industry, growth of assets under management, growth of adoption,” Yones said. “And it’s happening not just here in the U.S., but it’s really starting to happen worldwide. One of the great things about Direxion is they’ve always been a leader in the space when it comes to new product development, new product ideas, as well as being a traditionally U.S.-domiciled asset manager with a really large global footprint.
“ETFs are becoming more complex in nature," he added. “ETFs are continuing to move toward leverage, toward structured products. Given Direxion’s footprint and leadership in that space, it just makes a lot of sense that we’ll be in a great position to continue to lead the industry and continue to grow at a pretty significant rate.”
He confirmed that in its growth plans, Direxion would “continue to lean on our strengths,” which include leverage, inverse and structured products ETFs.
Direxion’s ETFs hold $44.37 billion in total net assets, with an asset growth rate of 10.69%. Some of its well-performing products this year include Direxion Work From Home ETF, which focuses on the technology sector and has delivered a year-to-date total return of 14.52%; Direxion Daily AAPL Bull 2X Shares, which focuses on leveraged equity and has delivered 33.02% in total return year-to-date; and Direxion Daily 20+ Ys TRSY Bear 3X ETF, with a focus on inverse debt and year-to-date return of 28.69%. On the other hand, Direxion Daily FTSE China Bear 3X ETF, with a focus on inverse equity, posted a loss of 69.16% so far this year.
An October report on Direxion from research firm Morningstar notes that the company shows 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 ratio. Based on a five-year risk-adjusted success ratio, only 25% of Direxion’s products outperformed median results in their respective categories.
Yones’ position at the NYSE, which he held since 2015, involves overseeing the listings and operations teams responsible for ETPs, closed-end funds and SPACs. According to his LinkedIn profile, the teams Yones led help asset managers with product and index development, regulatory guidance and legal support. Before 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 multiple episodes of WealthManagement.com’s Inside ETFs podcast.
With Yones’ departure, Tim Reilly will pick up Yones’ responsibilities at the NYSE as head of exchange-traded solutions. In that role, he will lead exchange-traded products and bonds businesses. Reilly will also continue to facilitate trading advisory services across the exchange.
Before taking over for Yones, Reilly spent over five years at the NYSE, most recently serving as senior director of markets. Prior to that role, he held the positions of senior director, head of sales and relationship management, and senior director and head of institutional equities. Before 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 agency-only broker and technology firm ITG. He also spent 14 years in various positions at Citi.
