New Filing Pushes AI Resilience ETF Targeting Heavy-Asset US Stocks

Defiance ETFs has filed a preliminary prospectus with the SEC for the Defiance US AI Resilience ETF. The passively managed fund is designed to hold companies least likely to be disrupted by artificial intelligence (AI).

The filing, submitted on Thursday, marks Defiance’s latest thematic bet. Rather than chasing AI upside, this fund takes the opposite approach by targeting old-economy businesses that AI is unlikely to replace.

What the AI Resilience ETF Holds

The ETF will track the VettaFi US AI Resilience Index. The index selects roughly 50 US large-cap companies from VettaFi’s broader equity universe. It focuses on what the industry has labeled “HALO” firms, short for Heavy Asset, Low Obsolescence.

These are businesses with inelastic demand, long-life physical infrastructure, and revenue profiles insulated from labor automation.

The index emphasizes Consumer Staples, Energy, Healthcare, Industrials, Materials, and Utilities. Holdings are weighted by float-adjusted market cap, capped at 3% per name, and rebalanced quarterly.

Under normal conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of net assets in companies that meet these AI-resilience criteria. It may use either full replication or representative sampling to track the index.

The HALO Thesis Behind the Fund

The ETF arrives as Wall Street’s appetite for HALO stocks continues to grow. Goldman Sachs introduced the framework in early 2026.

The firm found that capital-intensive companies relying on physical assets have outperformed capital-light, digital-first peers by about 35% since the start of 2025.

The reasoning is straightforward. Transmission grids, pipelines, industrial capacity, and transport infrastructure are costly to replicate and sit outside the reach of generative AI.

Software companies, by contrast, face growing displacement risk as AI systems automate more of their functions.

Defiance, which manages over $8 billion in assets, already operates thematic funds covering quantum computing, AI power infrastructure, and drone automation.

Its Quantum Computing ETF (QTUM) recently passed $4 billion in AUM with a 5-star Morningstar rating. The AI Resilience ETF extends that lineup into contrarian territory.

Key Details and What Comes Next

The prospectus is still preliminary. The ticker has not been assigned, and management fees are listed as placeholders. The fund will trade on Nasdaq once the filing becomes effective, which typically takes about 75 days.

Principal risks highlighted in the filing include interest-rate sensitivity for capital-intensive holdings and sector concentration in staples and industrials.

Penserra Capital Management will handle day-to-day portfolio management through a sub-advisory arrangement.

The actual portfolio managers are Dustin Lewellyn, Ernesto Tong, and Christine Johanson, all from Penserra.

The filing is available on SEC EDGAR under ETF Series Solutions. With AI hype dominating markets in 2026, Defiance is betting that investors will also pay for protection against the other side of that trade.