In this episode of Behind the Ticker, Brad Roth, CIO of Thor Financial Technologies, chats with Jon Clements, Managing Director and Co-founder of MarketDesk Research, about the MarketDesk Focused U.S. Momentum ETF (FMTM). Their discussion covers the differentiated way that MarketDesk approaches momentum investing, how FMTM’s strategy handles risk management, the value of equal-weighting, and more.
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A More Responsive Approach to Momentum Investing
Jon Clements began his career in equity research at Goldman Sachs, covering U.S. large-cap financials, before moving on to J.P. Morgan and Guggenheim. Then, in 2020, Clements and his brother co-founded MarketDesk Research, carrying on a family pattern of brothers building businesses together that runs back through their father and grandfather. MarketDesk began as a research and model portfolio platform with the ETF business following in 2022, and FMTM launched in March 2025.
FMTM uses a momentum algorithm MarketDesk had been running in-house for years, with several clients manually trading the holdings, weights, and monthly rebalances for three or four years before the fund existed. Converting it to an ETF allowed for tax efficiency and automation for clients. MarketDesk runs a number of quantitative models that Clements expects will find their way into ETFs over time.
The fund invests in U.S. equities, with a starting universe that includes a high liquidity requirement. From there, a quantitative quality screen across the balance sheet and income statement — profitability, healthy operating margins — narrows the field to about 300 names each month. Those names are then ranked on six months of share price data, and the algorithm holds 30 to 50 of them on an equal weight basis, rebalanced monthly. The shorter six-month versus twelve of traditional momentum models reduces market lag while still maintaining trend capture.
A key question for any momentum strategy is what happens when conditions turn against it? FMTM stays fully invested with all risk management implemented through holdings selection rather than asset allocation. The reasoning is that capital is largely a zero-sum game: even in a bear market, it has to flow somewhere, and there are always pockets of relative momentum that hold up better than the broad market. FMTM focuses on relative momentum in both bull and bear regimes, using the S&P 500 as its reference point, and shortens the signal further as volatility rises. In an extended drawdown, the portfolio could look dramatically different from what it holds today.