Insider Ownership May Matter More Than Earnings Behind The Ticker Fri, November 13, 2026 at 8:02 PM EST BRK-B +0.47% ^GSPC -0.40% OWN -0.69% Acquisition What if the smartest way to index isn't by company size, but by how much the people running those companies have on the line? That's the question Haren Bhakta set out to answer after a lightbulb moment at the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. On this episode of Behind the Ticker with host Brad Roth, Bhakta breaks down the thinking behind OWN, the Inside Ownership 100 ETF, and why he believes skin in the game is one of the most overlooked signals in investing.
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A flaw hiding in plain sight: Because the S&P 500 weights by free float, it will actually buy more Berkshire once Warren Buffett is gone and his shares start trading freely. Bhakta thinks that's backwards, since investors should want the most exposure while exceptional owners are still in charge. To fix it, he combed through about 21,000 proxy filings to build an index weighted by the dollar value of insider ownership.
History favors the owner-operator: GM, IBM, and GE each dominated under leaders with major ownership stakes, then faded after those leaders stepped away. Bhakta's favorite modern example is Nvidia versus Intel in 2020, when Intel had far better numbers but Nvidia had a founder who lived and breathed the business. Nvidia climbed more than 2,000% while Intel lagged the market.
Built to replace, not add to, the S&P: OWN's back test shows about two points of annual outperformance since 2005, with shallower drawdowns in 2008 and 2020, though it's more volatile in normal markets. Unlike founder ETFs, it only requires insiders to sit on the board, capturing companies like Alphabet and builders like Buffett. Haren suggests advisors use it in place of S&P 500 exposure, potentially trimming a 60/40 portfolio toward 50/50.
You can learn more about Inside Ownership Index at their website or find Haren Bhakta on LinkedIn.
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