TipRanks Moves From Data to Dollars With New Analyst-Powered ETF

NEW YORK, NY – July 09, 2026 – For over a decade, TipRanks has built its reputation on demystifying Wall Street for retail investors, offering transparency into the performance of professional analysts. Today, the financial technology company is making its most significant strategic pivot yet, moving from an information provider to a product creator with the launch of the Defiance KSM TipRanks Analyst ETF (NYSE: RANK). This move doesn't just represent a new product; it signals a fundamental shift in how proprietary data is being monetized and integrated into the very fabric of investment vehicles.

For years, TipRanks has served as a data intermediary, helping millions of users evaluate institutional research. With RANK, it is now packaging its core intellectual property—proprietary analyst performance data—into an investable asset. This evolution from research tool to portfolio engine marks a critical juncture for the FinTech industry, blurring the lines between insight and asset and raising questions about the future of data-driven portfolio construction.

"At TipRanks, our mission has always been to make institutional-quality investment intelligence accessible to every investor," said Uri Gruenbaum, CEO and Co-Founder of TipRanks, in the official announcement. "Launching our first ETF is a natural extension of that vision. We're moving beyond helping investors make better decisions—we're enabling investment products themselves to be powered by our data. We believe this represents the future of investing."

The Mechanics of Conviction and Momentum

The new ETF is not a discretionary fund but a rules-based strategy that tracks the proprietary TipRanks US Momentum Analysts Index. The methodology is a systematic, two-factor approach designed to capture both institutional conviction and market momentum. First, the index screens the 500 largest U.S.-listed companies to identify the 100 stocks with the strongest 'buy' ratings from Wall Street analysts, according to TipRanks' vast dataset.

From this high-conviction pool, the index then applies a momentum filter, selecting the 50 companies demonstrating the strongest recent price performance. This momentum is calculated using a combination of a stock’s current price relative to its eight-month average and its 50-day average price relative to its 200-day average. The resulting 50-stock portfolio is market-cap weighted, with built-in risk controls that cap any single stock at 6% and any single sector at 40% of the portfolio. The entire index is rebalanced quarterly to ensure it stays aligned with the latest analyst sentiment and market trends.

This disciplined process is a collaboration between several industry specialists. While TipRanks provides the core data and index concept, the index itself is independently calculated and administered by VettaFi, a leading index provider. The ETF is issued by Defiance ETFs, known for its thematic and innovative funds, with KSM serving as the index sponsor. This partnership structure allows each firm to focus on its core competency, from data intelligence to regulatory compliance and distribution.

Navigating the Smart Beta Landscape

In a market saturated with thousands of ETFs, differentiation is key. RANK enters a competitive field populated by both pure momentum funds, like the iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF (MTUM), and a growing number of AI-driven funds that use machine learning for stock selection. RANK carves out a unique niche by blending a human-centric data point—analyst recommendations—with a quantitative factor like momentum. It’s a hybrid approach that wagers on the idea that the collective wisdom of top-performing analysts, when combined with positive price trends, can produce a measurable edge.

"We're constantly looking for differentiated investment strategies that can provide investors with a measurable edge," noted Sylvia Jablonski, Chief Investment Officer of Defiance ETFs. "By combining TipRanks' unique analyst intelligence with a disciplined momentum methodology, RANK offers investors a transparent, systematic approach to identifying companies with both strong institutional conviction and favorable market trends."

This strategy effectively translates a common investor thought process—'what do the experts like, and which of those stocks are trending up?'—into an automated, investable product. It’s a compelling narrative, but one that will be tested against the performance of simpler factor ETFs and more complex AI-driven strategies. The success of RANK will ultimately depend on whether its unique blend of data can consistently outperform, justifying its position in an investor’s portfolio.

A Look Under the Hood for Investors

For potential investors, the launch brings both opportunity and necessary due diligence. The ETF carries an expense ratio of 0.60%, or 60 basis points, which is competitive for a complex, data-intensive strategy but higher than that of broad-market index funds. The initial portfolio reveals a significant weighting towards the Technology sector, which comprises over 36% of the fund, followed by Industrials and Healthcare. Top holdings include names like Micron Technology, Walmart, and Amazon.

As with any factor-based strategy, there are specific risks to consider. The fund's prospectus highlights "Momentum Risk," acknowledging that stocks with strong recent performance can be volatile and that momentum can reverse quickly. Furthermore, the strategy’s reliance on TipRanks’ proprietary data introduces "Third Party Data Risk," where the integrity and effectiveness of the underlying data are paramount to the index's success. The fund is also new, lacking a long-term track record of its own, though the back-tested performance of its underlying index has shown significant outperformance against benchmarks like the S&P 500.

TipRanks' venture into asset management is a bold declaration about the inherent value of its data. By creating RANK, the company is betting that its ability to analyze and rank Wall Street analysts can be directly translated into a durable investment factor. As RANK begins trading, it serves as a key test case for how proprietary data can be transformed from a research tool into a direct, investable asset, a model that others in the FinTech space will be watching closely.