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Advisors in 2025 are facing a new wave of investment challenges—balancing capital appreciation against the urgent need for portfolio preservation. At the Future Proof Festival, Hans Williams, Head of ETF Distribution at Calamos, delivered a candid conversation on how advisor priorities are shifting and what solutions Calamos is offering to tackle the toughest problems facing clients and wealth managers today.
Advisors’ Biggest Concern: Preserving Wealth After Big Market Years
Williams set the scene by saying, “There’s always that interest around capital appreciation. You know, growing your investment dollars. But when you look at the fact that last year, the S&P was up over 20%, the year before that, the S&P was up over 20%, this year, it’s up 10%. Preservation, how to preserve capital on a go-forward basis is becoming more and more of a pre-theme in terms of what we’re hearing from advisors today.” This shift toward preservation signals a broad industry move past pure growth and toward defending gains already made.
Innovation Built for Protection
So how does Calamos propose advisors seek protection for client portfolios? Williams outlined a specific suite of ETFs launched just a year and a half ago—each designed for protection on a go-forward basis. He explained, “Any investment that you own, or that you research, that has some sort of beta number, right? Maybe it’s a 0.7 beta or 0.9 beta below market risk in theory, you’re hoping that on a go forward basis, it delivers that type of outcome or maybe that’s a similar type of outcoming. If the market’s down 10, and I have a beta of 0.8 on my strategy that I own in theory, I should say around 200 basis points, on a relative basis.”
Williams continued, “What we’ve built on a go forward basis, through our options package, we’ve built one-year investment horizon outlook structures around the S&P, NASDAQ, Russell II, and actually Bitcoin as well.” This means, for every major asset class, Calamos has designed ETF options that let advisors know their maximum risk and upside before they invest.
A Standout Feature: 100% Capital Protected Bitcoin Strategy
One of the most intriguing products? Williams detailed, “We have a 100% capital protected Bitcoin strategy. It’s a one year outcome period, 100% capital protect means that over the next year, if you buy and hold it through the end of the outcome period, you earn $100 invested in worst case scenario, return $100, even if Bitcoin goes to zero. And your upside participation is simply the cap rate that is associated with it on day one of the outcome period, and that’ll change throughout time, but if, for example, it’s a 10% cap rate in day one, your Bitcoin goes up 10% over the year, you realize that return, if Bitcoin falls to zero, your $100 is still $100 to the entry.”
This model is being extended beyond Bitcoin: “We started with the S&P, the NASDAQ and Russell II. This year we introduced it with Bitcoin. So we can extend beyond your traditional asset classes of large cap equities, Russell 2000s.”
How Advisors Can Allocate—and Customize Risk
Allocating to these protective ETFs is flexible. Williams said, “When you assign risk parameters in specific risk parameters around Bitcoin as an asset, which we have, we have three of them. One is a 100% capital protect, meaning no capital risk. One is a 90, which means you’re risking 10%. There’s an 80 capital protect, which means you’re risking 20% of investment dollars. So because you now have specific guardrails around which you’re risking, on a go forward basis and know exactly capital risk over that 365 day period, we’re actually recommending maybe closer to 10%.”
He added, “We’ve actually a great white paper that illustrates Bitcoin and how to invest in it through our risk structured portfolio products...So for example, the S&P this century is down about 14% on average. So any downward the S&P has, its average is about 14% this century. So our 10% and 20% Bitcoin products, for example, if you were to blend those, you could actually synthetically create an S&P like downside risk personality, and then an upside cap that far exceeds, anything you can get with the S&P.”
The Rise of Derivative Income ETFs
Advisors also want reliable income as volatility rises. Williams noted, “Derivative income funds, like covered calls, ETFs seem to be really popular advisors right now, they grow more than 10 times since 2020. 10X since 2020. Two about $100 billion in AUM at the end of July.”
He explained the appeal: “So covered call strategy in a sense...When you write call options monthly, so when you sell call options to generate premium, take that in as in the form of income, the more you take in, or other words, the more of the S&P portfolio you cover, the higher your coverage ratio, the more income you generate, but in options in the world to get something and to give something up, you effectively then give up your upside.”
The Next Wave: Auto-Callable Income ETF
The innovation continues with a new auto-callable income ETF. Williams explained their approach: “We launched a structured note, ETF replication strategy about 10 months ago, sorry, ten weeks ago...70% of the structure note market today and issuance is over $100 billion now a year. Over 70% of that is what’s called auto-callable yield notes. So we replicated the experience of the auto-callable market through an auto-callable income ETF.”
He continued, “So on swap, with our hedge provider, we provide the total return experience of our auto-callable index, which is about a 14% coupon. And it contains five-year term auto-callables. Basically, think of a bond that’s price behavior is tied to an index. In our case, the S&P 500 with a bit more volatility. So it’s taking this market that’s growing at the institutional level through banks, banks are typically issue auto-callables, marrying that with the ETF wrapper, bringing it to market, so now that anyone can simply gain exposure to auto-callables through our ETF.”
Why Advisors Are Adopting Calamos ETFs
Williams summarized the practical benefits for advisors:
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Diversification beyond single-note exposures
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Improved operational efficiency (fewer paperwork headaches, recurring exposure with new assets added weekly)
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Enhanced tax efficiency (majority of ETF income classified as “return of capital,” with long term capital gains on distribution for qualified holders)
He shared, “If you hold the ETF for at least a year, the majority of the income that we distribute is going to be long term capital gains. So what have the tax implications is you kind of touched on that...The majority of what’s being passed through is going to be classified as return of the capital, because there are no actual physical notes in the portfolio. It’s the swap contract that’s replicating what’s occurring at the index logo, in our index provider.”
Four Key Quotes from Hans Williams
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“Preservation, how to preserve capital on a go forward basis is becoming more and more of a pre-theme in terms of what we’re hearing from advisors today.”
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“We have a 100% capital protected Bitcoin strategy. It’s a one year outcome period, 100% capital protect means that over the next year, if you buy and hold it through the end of the outcome period, your $100 is still $100 to the entry.”
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“You now have specific guardrails around which you’re risking, on a go forward basis and know exactly capital risk over that 365 day period.”
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“Derivative income funds, like covered calls, ETFs seem to be really popular advisors right now, they grow more than 10 times since 2020.”
The Takeaway
For advisors confronted by market uncertainty, Calamos’ latest suite of ETFs provides clarity, protection, and innovation—whether the goal is capital preservation, intelligent Bitcoin exposure, or streamlined income generation. Williams’ interview shows that the future of advisor portfolios will be built on products where both risk and reward are defined upfront—and the operational headache is eliminated for good.
This new wave of ETF solutions answers what advisors are hearing in client meetings and equips them for whatever comes next in the market.
To learn more about Calamos, please visit their websire here.