European Defence | Berkshire Hathaway Income Bitcoin Owners | iShares Bitcoin | Jewish Exclusions
March continues several trends that ULTUMUS has been tracking for over a year: defence ETFs, enhanced income from options, crypto launches and faith-based indices.
As European countries ramp up defence spending, some politicians fear that Europe can no longer rely on US support in the NATO alliance, and defence stocks crown Europe’s leaderboard, the time is ripe for a dedicated European defence ETF: WisdomTree’s WDEF, tracking the WisdomTree Europe Defence UCITS Index, which is invested mainly in large cap stocks including France’s Thales SA, Germany’s Rheinmetall AG, Italy’s Leonardo Spa, the UK’s BAE Systems Plc and Sweden’s Saab AB. The cost ratio of 0.40% is competitive for a sector specialist ETF.
This year Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is up about 16% in the first quarter, well ahead of the S&P 500 down about 4% and the Nasdaq 100 off by around 8%.VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF (OMAH) replicates the top 20 Berkshire Hathaway holdings (using the Solactive VistaShares Berkshire Select Index), also owns Berkshire Hathaway itself, and adds an options overlay to generate more income. The expense ratio of 0.95% is above average even amongst products with option overlays, which do tend to cost more.
Bitwise’s new Bitcoin Standard Corporations ETF (OWNB) tracks the Bitwise Bitcoin Standard Corporations Index, which contains public companies that own at least 1,000 BTC. There are now at least 70 such firms. The most well- known ones include Michael Saylor’s Microstrategy and Elon Musk’s Tesla, as well as bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings, but Norway’s Aker ASA is also in the top ten. An expense ratio of 0.85% is high for a passive ETF.
In contrast, a new bitcoin ETF offers an early bird fee discount: its expense ratio is discounted to 0.15% until 1 January 2026 when it rises to 0.25%. The world’s largest ETF manager, iShares, has just launched its first bitcoin ETP in Europe: iShares Bitcoin ETP. The product is domiciled in Switzerland and initially listed on Euronext Amsterdam, Euronext Paris and Xetra in Germany.
The top ten holdings of JLENS 500 JEWISH ADVOCACY US ETF (TOV – meaning good in Hebrew) look very like the S&P 500, but it tracks the JLens 500 Jewish Advocacy U.S. Index, which does actually follow a faith-based exclusion methodology. This leads to one category of exclusions rather similar to many “ESG” strategies: oil sands production, thermal coal extraction, tobacco, and for-profit prisons are deemed “Treif” meaning Not Fit in Hebrew. However, Nichsal - meaning Failed in Hebrew - companies that have undertaken egregious acts are defined differently, including companies that have removed products or operations from Israel due to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In other words, TOV excludes companies that exclude Israel. Its expense ratio of 0.18% is reasonable for a non-standard index tracker.
