Dan Ives' SEC Ban Is Gone. Now He Has an ETF.

Dan Ives, the dazzling Wedbush tech analyst who’s seemingly glued to a CNBC chair and perpetually cloaked in a retina-searing vomit of fluorescent lining that grooves perfectly with his visceral banter, has launched an exchange-traded fund. The ticker? IVES. As if it weren’t enough for Ives to zap your eyes and ears, or maybe you adore the sparkling caricature — to each their own. In any case, Ives would be tickled to fondle your dollars.

And Jim Cramer, the iconic, neurotic, motormouth gambling guru, who ostensibly knows a little about a lot, or nothing about everything (a more soured stock-goer might add), recently endorsed IVES on X. Booyah!

IVES was born on June 3, 2025, and as of June 27, 2025, had net assets of $270,130,456.36. Quite the growth spurt, and especially impressive considering that Ives, on June 7, 2022, agreed to a cease-and-desist order from the SEC for falsifying revenues. Ives paid a $15,000 fine and was deemed unable to participate “as a salesperson in transactions, contracts, or agreements involving (1) side or supplemental contracts, agreements, or letters and (2) the sale of goods or services valued at or over $10,000”.

Unshackled from the SEC’s handcuffs in the midst of a manic market – Ives’ timing is uncanny. But before delving into the anatomy of IVES, we shall dig into Mr. Ives’ corporate escapade that landed him the SEC’s doghouse:

Ives, from early 2016 to mid-2017, was “Executive Vice President of Investor Relations” at Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (ticker: SNCR), a New Jersey-based, publicly-traded company selling software to telecom companies.

In late 2016, SNCR forecasted they would close on the sale of a “perpetual license agreement” or “PLA” for software to one of their customers for $4 million. The fourth quarter was coming to a close, and “Customer A” informed SCNR that it wouldn’t okay the deal until 2017.

Well, shoot. That’s horrific news for SNCR executives since their compensation committee established “non-GAAP” revenue and “non-GAAP” EBITDA as the corporate components of their incentive bonus programs.

Compensation incentives from SNCR’s 2017 proxy statement:

“For our NEOs' Annual Cash Incentive Bonuses (other than Mr. Putnam), our Compensation Committee approved the following metrics: 45% based on the Company's non-GAAP revenue* for 2016; 45% based on the Company's non-GAAP EBITDA* for 2016; and 10% based on the NEO's individual performance.”

And performance-based shares:

“60% are earned based on three-year average annual non-GAAP revenue* growth of our Company from 2016 to 2018; 30% are earned based on three-year average annual non-GAAP EBITDA* from 2016 to 2018; and 10% are earned based on three-year annual revenue growth in our Enterprise business from 2016 to 2018”.

What is Non-GAAP Ebitda, AND Non-GAAP revenue? (found on the last page of SNCR’s proxy statement):

“In calculating both non-GAAP revenue and non-GAAP EBITDA, we add back stock-based compensation expense, the deferred revenue write-down associated with acquisitions, acquisition-related costs, restructuring charges, changes in the contingent consideration obligation, deferred compensation expense related to earn-outs and amortization of intangibles associated with acquisitions.”

Geez, it’s as if the add-backs’ add-backs had add-backs. SNCR booked $476 million of revenue in 2016, yet non-GAAP revenue totaled $698.4 million, “representing 20% growth from 2015, and above the target attainment, resulting in a 108% payout with respect to this component”.

SNCR executives casually crafted economic performance to their will. To them, accrual accounting was a free, fattening, and fun lunch.

Anyway, back to the main plot. After “Customer A” backed out of the deal, Ives, Marc Bandini (SNCR Senior Director of Communications and Media), and Clayton Thomas (SNCR Senior Vice President of Analytics) persuaded one of their subcontractors (“Subcontractor A” per the SEC filing, but will be referenced hereon as “Subby”) to buy the software PLA initially made for Customer A before year end, for $3.6 million, and then resell it to Customer A in 2017. Yet, Subby was never a customer of SNCR, had never been a reseller of software, and explicitly told Ives, Bandini, and Thomas they weren’t good for the $3.6 million.

The unscrupulous trio was relentless, though, sending a “side-letter” to Subby, stating that Subby needn’t pay for the software until it was resold, and that SNCR would make Subby whole for any losses potentially incurred in the resale, and of course, SNCR promised future business to Subby as well.

But it was New Year’s Eve morning, and Subby hadn’t agreed to SNCR’s terms, and timing was of the essence, so Thomas, SVP of analytics and probably the brains of the bunch, proposed a genius plan to one of Subby’s “representatives”: SNCR would pre-pay the long-standing consulting fees it expected to pay Subby, so Subby could then use those funds to pay the $3.6 million it would owe SNCR under the Reseller Agreement.

Then Ives comes in from the top rope:

“Ives called Subcontractor A’s CEO and reiterated that SNCR would pre-pay fees to Subcontractor A in order to finance Subcontractor A’s obligation to SNCR under the Reseller Agreement. Ives further promised that Subcontractor A would not suffer a loss from the deal under any circumstances, including assuring Subcontractor A that in the event that Customer A did not ultimately purchase the license, Subcontractor A would not be held responsible for the $3.6 million payment to SNCR. Subcontractor A agreed to the proposal outlined by Ives and Thomas.”

It seems Thomas couldn’t close a deal, so Dazzling Dan hopped on the horn and made Subby an offer he couldn’t refuse. Without Ives, maybe a deal isn’t inked.

“Following the meeting on that same day, Subcontractor A emailed Ives, Bandini, and Thomas to confirm that they were working on memorializing the terms of the proposal in a draft agreement (“second side letter”). This second side letter, which was drafted with the assistance of others at SNCR, amended a previously signed agreement between Subcontractor A and SNCR and provided that SNCR would prepay $4.05 million in fees to Subcontractor A by February 28, 2017. Ives reviewed a draft of the second side letter and emailed others at SNCR to let them know that the document would be finalized and executed in early 2017.”

SNCR paid Subby $4.05 million so the SNCR gang could pen $3.6 million in revenue and hit their compensation targets. Voluptuous bonuses rolled in, and Subby was happy, too, likely pocketing the $450,000 difference. It’s a win for everybody, except shareholders.

Thereafter, the SEC caught wind of SNCR’s mischievous deeds and shut them down. And here’s why, technically speaking, Ives’ shady maneuvers¹ were illegal.

“SNCR’s inclusion of this revenue was improper under GAAP because, as reflected in the first and second side letter and as Ives knew or recklessly disregarded, the fee was contingent on Subcontractor A reselling the software. Because of this contingency, the Reseller Agreement was in substance a consignment agreement, revenue which, according to GAAP, can be recognized only when the sale to an end customer is complete (provided all other revenue recognition criteria have been met).

So the SEC declared Ives cooked² the books and barred him from the securities world for three years. On top of this, he had to cough up fifteen grand and was sentenced to thirty hours of compliance training relating to revenue recognition and/or accounting fraud to be completed within a year.

And now with the fine paid, compliance training complete, and three years forgone, the sell-side³ starburst is back, brighter, and better than ever, launching an ETF titled “Dan IVES Wedbush AI Revolution ETF”, and ticker’d with his last name.

IVES is a thematic ETF⁴ tracking the Solactive Wedbush Artificial Intelligence Index, which is currently stuffed with thirty tech names⁵, including the usual suspects: Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Amazon, making up the top five holdings, and Tesla, Palantir Technologies, Snowflake, and others alike making the cut as well.

Ives and his team spend all day researching and ultimately deciding which stocks are placed into IVES. Which might be partly true, but the prospectus duly notes that Ives tosses his AI report to a robot, who digests the data, and with a sophisticated algorithm, assigns the proper weighting for each stock.

First, Solactive constructs IVES’ with a “proprietary natural language processing algorithm, named “ARTIS” that begins with an initial universe of companies that: (1) are included in the AI Report; (2) are included in the Solactive GBS Global Markets All Cap USD Index, an index designed to track the performance of companies of all capitalizations from developed and emerging market countries; (3) are listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC, the New York Stock Exchange or NYSE American; and (4) have a minimum market capitalization of $250 million and a minimum average daily traded value for the last 3 months greater than or equal to $1.5 million.”

Once the investable universe is set, ARTIS identifies companies that generate at least 50% of their revenues from one of the following AI categories (each category an “AI Business” and each company, an “AI Company”):

AI Software, Generative AI, Cloud Infrastructure Services, AI Semiconductors, Network and Infrastructure, AI Services, Technology Hardware & Equipment.

Then, ARTIS computes a score for the companies based on the quantity of a “keyword” found in company filings, financial news, press releases, etc. Also, “the repetition of a single keyword is less important than matches of several different keywords”. Thus, if a word is spammed, ARTIS gives it less weight, so nothing too freaky occurs. High tech stuff.

Keywords that ARTIS scours for include: “Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Large Language Models (LLMs), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Neural Networks, Reinforcement Learning, High-Performance Computing (HPC), AI Chips, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), AI Data Centers, Low-Latency Networking, and AI Integration. Other key terms may be used, in addition to those listed, and not all of the listed terms are necessarily used at the time of each reconstitution or rebalance.”

Naturally, I googled “What is a neural network?” and learned that it’s a method in AI that teaches computers to process data like the human brain. My neural network can’t quite grasp exactly what a neural network is; still, it’s amused but not amazed that a Wall Street character with a colorful past has amassed nearly three hundred million dollars, and that an algorithm based in Germany allocates those funds to hot tech stocks, all while he ponies around the globe in a variety of neon uniforms.

To end, here’s some dialogue on Reddit from three months ago, under the thread “Is anyone annoyed by Dan Ives”:

Adventurous-Bet-9640: “I try to stay positive in general in whatever I do. But whenever I see this smug clown on CNBC, it infuses a sense of nausea in my head. That guy literally spews fecal matter out of his mouth. Setting ridiculous price targets on stocks like Tesla, palantir, etc. Sorry folks, I kinda wanted to get this rant out of my system. Cheers and keep on growing.”

To which vichyswazz responded: “You're just mad he's got more sauce”

1. SNCR counted and collected their chickens before they hatched. Here are the specifications of a consignment agreement: ASC 606-10-55-80: Indicators that an arrangement is a consignment arrangement include, but are not limited to, the following: A) The product is controlled by the entity until a specified event occurs, such as the sale of the product to a customer of the dealer, or until a specified period expires. B) The entity is able to require the return of the product or transfer the product to a third party (such as another dealer). C) The dealer does not have an unconditional obligation to pay for the product (although it might be required to pay a deposit).

2. “violated Section 13(b)(5) of the Exchange Act and Rule 13b2-1 thereunder, which prohibit any person from knowingly circumventing or failing to implement a system of internal accounting controls; knowingly falsifying any book, record, or account, which, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the issuer; and directly or indirectly, falsifying or causing to be falsified, any book, record or account subject to Section 13(b)(2)(A) of the Exchange Act…

Ives caused SNCR to violate Sections 13(a) and 13(b)(2)(A) of the Exchange Act and Rules 13a-1, 13a-11, and 12b-20 thereunder, which require every issuer of a security registered pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act to file with the Commission accurate information, documents, and annual reports as the Commission may require, mandate that periodic reports contain such further material information as may be necessary to make the required statements not misleading, and require issuers to make and keep books, records, and accounts that accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the issuer.”

3. “Sell-side” – An equity research analyst working at an investment bank or brokerage firm producing investment research that is circulated to the firm's clients. Also known for setting price targets on tons of stocks, which are often terribly wrong.

4. A thematic ETF invests in a group of stocks tied to a specific theme or trend, rather than a traditional sector. Such ETFs are usually provocative; they get the people going. Consider BIBL, which invests in inspiring, biblically aligned large companies in the U.S, or the Millennial Consumer ETF (MILN).

5. A hip way to say stocks.