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> Anyone currently invested is presumably in because they like the insanely high profit margin, [...]

I'm invested in Nvidia because it's part of the index that my ETF is tracking. I have no clue what their profit margins are.




> I'm invested in Nvidia [...] my ETF

That would be an unusual situation for an ETF. An ETF does not usually extend ownership of the underlying investment portfolio. An ETF normally offers investors the opportunity to invest in the ETF itself. The ETF is what you would be invested in. Your concern as an investor in an ETF would only be with the properties of the ETF, it being what you are invested in, and this seems to be true in your case as well given how you describe it.

Are you certain you are invested in Nvidia? The outcome of the ETF may depend on Nvidia, but it may also depend on how a butterfly in Africa happens to flap its wings. You aren't, by any common definition found within this type of context, invested in that butterfly.


Technically, all the Nvidia stock (and virtually all stocks in the US) are owned by Cede and Co. So Nvidia has only one investor.[0] There's several layers of indirection between your Robinhood portfolio and the actual Nvidia shares, even if Robinhood mentions NVDA as a position in your portfolio.

The ETF is just one more layer of indirection. You might like to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund#Arbitrage... to see how ETFs are connected to the underlying assets.

You will find that the connection between ETFs and the underlying assets in the index is much more like the connection between your Robinhood portfolio and Nvidia, than the connection between butterflies and thunderstorms.

[0] At least for its stocks. Its bonds are probably held in different but equally weird ways.


> Technically, all the Nvidia stock (and virtually all stocks in the US) are owned by Cede and Co.

Technically, but they extend ownership. An ETF is a different type of abstraction. Which you already know because you spoke about that abstraction in your original comment, so why play stupid now?


I have no clue what you mean by 'extend ownership', and it's supposed to be different from what ETFs are doing.

An ETF typically holds the underlying assets, and you own a part of the ETF.




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