In an era of anti-establishment ire, Matthew Tuttle is betting there’s demand for a retail-friendly fund designed to profit from political influence in Corporate America.
The investment manager filed this week to launch an exchange-traded fund — ticker GRFT — that aims to hold a portfolio of companies with demonstrated ties to the politically connected, ranging from the inner circle of a sitting U.S. president to members of Congress.
The premise, outlined in its prospectus, is to offer ordinary investors a way to trade on the perceived link between power and profit, effectively creating a bet on Washington’s insider culture.
While its tone is provocative, the Tuttle product would follow a path paved by peers. The Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic and Republican Trading ETFs (tickers NANC and GOP) debuted in 2023 to follow bipartisan disclosures under the STOCK Act.
Where NANC and GOP use shorthand tickers for political affiliation, GRFT suggests a more pointed critique.
“There’s certainly a cheeky theme to it,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. “It’s hard to differentiate yourself in a crowded ETF world and this seems like an opportune way to do it, although with a very pronounced political spin.”
GRFT’s prospectus outlines an investment strategy targeting holdings disclosed by members of Congress, companies with personal or professional ties to a sitting U.S. president, and short-term trades linked to presidential praise, speeches, or social media commentary.
It doesn’t name specific politicians or administrations. But the pitch is simple: “to translate political influence into investable insights.”
The actively managed fund will then seek to capitalize on these dynamics using a data-driven investment process. It could move entirely to cash and cash equivalents during volatility spikes. GRFT would charge a 0.75% fee. Tuttle of Tuttle Capital Management declined to comment, citing regulatory reasons.
The GRFT filing lands at a time when President Donald Trump’s business dealings have drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., his social media company, has recently moved into cryptocurrencies, announcing plans to borrow money for a Bitcoin treasury, while also filing to launch its own crypto-themed ETFs.
A spokesperson for the White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House has consistently denied any conflicts of interest, saying the president remains walled off from his business holdings.
For all the marketing savvy, there’s little evidence that trading based on perceived political favoritism consistently outperforms the market.
Model-based approaches can struggle with delayed disclosures, market-timing challenges and conflicting policy signals, especially when filtered through news cycles or social media.
And while public mistrust in institutions is high, the assumption that political “grift” is pervasive or systemic often hinges on partisan interpretation.
Congressional financial disclosures, meanwhile, are legally mandated and reviewed, while presidential praise, though influential, doesn’t always translate into material gains for companies.
Whether the strategy resonates with investors is also an open question. The $53 million GOP’s top holdings include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and a popular Bitcoin ETF that was launched by BlackRock. Both it and NANC are outperforming the S&P 500 so far this year.
The biggest members of NANC, which has $223 million in assets, are tech companies Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.
The ‘GRFT’ ticker is itself central to the strategy. Competition in the crowded $11 trillion US ETF market is forcing issuers to create novel products and memorable tickers have become crucial for capturing investor attention.
Research has also shown that stocks with tickers that are actual words tend to benefit from lower spreads and greater liquidity.
Tuttle, for one, has positioned himself at the forefront of the trend, including launching a now-shuttered ETF that bet against the stock picks of the television host Jim Cramer.
The Connecticut-based manager disclosed that at one point last year he was sitting on at least 20 tickers. Earlier in 2025, he launched a leveraged product tracking Trump Media, designed to capture speculative fervor.
Beyond the executive branch, the fund’s investment thesis wades directly into the heated debate over congressional stock trading, a perennial issue that draws scrutiny among a large number of constituencies, not least the Reddit crowd.
“The thesis behind funds like these is that members of Congress are privy to inside information that informs their personal trading,” said Jane Edmondson, head of index product strategy at TMX VettaFi.
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