From Zephyr’s Adjusted for Risk podcast, Ryan Nauman interviews Jim Jessup, income strategist at Virtus ETF Solutions, about ETF innovation and today’s fixed income environment. Jessup explains Virtus’s product-development approach: focus on commercially viable ETFs where managers can add alpha rather than chasing trends, and notes some highly specific ETFs may close or the industry may consolidate. On fixed income, he says despite macro and geopolitical noise and a new Fed chair (Warsh), market conditions look relatively normal: prices near par, default rates below but moving toward historical averages, and strong demand shown by oversubscribed new issues. He argues this is a “bond picker’s market” favoring active management, discusses private credit as a growing but varied space with both risks and liquidity benefits, and highlights the surge in AI-related investment-grade issuance as hyperscaler capex increasingly financed by debt.
Learn more about Zephyr here.
Learn more about Virtus Investment Partners here.

00:00 Podcast Kickoff
01:14 Meet Jim Jessup
03:12 ETF Boom Explained
04:05 Product Innovation Filter
06:52 Will ETFs Consolidate
08:22 Fixed Income Snapshot
10:36 Fed Chair And Signals
15:12 Defaults And Debt Wall
19:37 Private Credit Debate
25:14 Cash Yields And Risk
28:11 AI Driven Debt Wave
30:07 Where To Learn More

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