David Schulhof began making the case for music as a serious investment category long before the rest of the market started paying attention. As the Founder and CEO of MUSQ, LLC, The Music ETF, Schulhof launched the MUSQ Global Music Industry Index ETF (ticker: MUSQ)—the only pure-play music exchange-traded fund—and has watched the industry evolve from a post-Napster cautionary tale into one of the more quietly powerful growth stories in global markets. Earlier in May, he made that case in person.
On May 8, MUSQ hosted the inaugural Amplify Music Investment Summit at the Virgin Hotels New York City—a full-day, immersive investment conference that drew nearly 300 attendees, including RIAs, retail investors, and wealth advisors. CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Forbes all showed up. So did legendary music executive Clive Davis. By the time the day was over, the room was standing-room only.
The event was, by any measure, a serious statement of intent—and a signal to financial advisors that the music industry is no longer a niche conversation.
The Summit Was a Long Time Coming
Amplify, a joint presentation of MUSQ and the Mondo.NYC Conference, was designed from the ground up to educate investors on every major corner of the music business—streaming, content and distribution, live events, ticketing, and AI-driven technology. Six panels, more than 30 speakers, and a keynote conversation hosted by CNBC’s Jon Fortt with Robert Kyncl, CEO of Warner Music Group. Alongside Kyncl was Lisa Yang, Warner Music’s newly appointed Global Head of Strategy, who spent nearly 17 years at Goldman Sachs authoring the highly regarded “Music in the Air” annual industry report.
Schulhof says the conference was always part of the plan. “When I launched MUSQ three years ago, it was always the plan to build a physical conference around the ETF where we could invite a lot of the CEOs from a lot of our different companies across the industry to talk about the industry,” he says.
Education is central to MUSQ’s long-term strategy—many advisors already understand the dominance of streaming platforms or the scale of live entertainment, but fewer recognize how interconnected the broader ecosystem has become or how attractively priced the underlying equities remain.
“We did a deep dive into every segment of our fund,” Schulhof says. “And then there was a huge networking session. Warner Music Group did the after-party.”
Interest in the conference appears to reinforce a larger trend: advisors increasingly want thematic exposure backed by durable business models rather than speculative narratives. Music, according to Schulhof, checks several boxes simultaneously—recurring subscription revenue, expanding global demand, intellectual property monetization, and international growth all contribute to the thesis.
The Investment Case
Strip away the star power and the sold-out room, and what Amplify powerfully delivered was a sector-by-sector breakdown of why music stocks are undervalued—and by how much. Kyncl and Yang made the case directly: music equities currently trade at roughly one-third of the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) multiples commanded by other media companies, and at a substantial discount to comparable private-market music deals. Goldman Sachs projects global music revenues growing from approximately $100 billion today to more than $200 billion by 2035, fueled by streaming adoption, emerging markets, live entertainment, and AI-enabled efficiencies.
The streaming piece is particularly stark. The global paid subscriber base, currently roughly 800 million, is projected to grow substantially through the next decade, driven largely by emerging markets. “Seventy percent of those revenues get paid down to all the content owners from Universal Music to Warner Music to Sony,” explains Schulhof. “So, as streaming grows, revenues get distributed across the board to all of the record companies and publishing companies.”
The kicker, in his view, is that subscription prices haven’t kept pace with the value being delivered. At $11 per month, Spotify offers access to more than 250 million songs—a fraction of what HBO or Netflix charges for its respective catalog—leaving significant room for rate increases ahead. The industry also carries a meaningful growth premium in international markets: while U.S. streaming growth is moderating, emerging markets are expanding at 30–40% annually in some regions.
Taken together, the picture Schulhof paints is of an industry that has steadily become one of the more structurally sound growth opportunities available in public markets. “We’re in a boom right now,” he says, “bull market for music, and music’s just really cheap right now.”
Building a Global Music Portfolio
MUSQ tracks the MUSQ Global Music Industry Index, which includes companies tied to streaming, content and distribution, live music events, ticketing, music technology, and equipment manufacturing. The ETF generally holds between 35 and 45 companies across market capitalizations and geographies, rebalanced quarterly, with no single position permitted to exceed 12% of the fund and no eligible company carrying a market cap below $200 million.
According to Schulhof, 80% of the portfolio consists of pure-play music companies—firms deriving at least half their revenues from music-related businesses, while the remainder includes diversified firms with meaningful exposure to music-related businesses. “Apple, Amazon, and Google are diversified companies, but they’re small weights in the fund,” he notes. “You have to include them because Spotify is one, Tencent’s two, and then Apple, Amazon, and Google are the three, four, and five biggest players in streaming.”
Live entertainment companies, venue operators, and music equipment manufacturers also play a role in the portfolio. Holdings include businesses connected to concerts, ticketing infrastructure, audio technology, and instrument production.
The portfolio’s breadth reflects Schulhof’s deliberate approach to construction. “We’ve organized this in a very thoughtful way,” he says. “You’re having exposure to streaming companies, content and distribution, data analytics companies, live music events and ticketing, all the equipment manufacturers from Yamaha to Roland, to Dolby. These are companies producing the keyboards, the soundboards, the guitars, the pianos. So, it’s a great way to invest in the growth of this industry.”
Global access is among the ETF’s defining characteristics—and one of its more practical selling points. Half of MUSQ’s holdings are foreign-listed equities, traded locally across markets in Japan, China, India, Taiwan, and South Korea, not through American depositary receipts (ADRs). For an advisor trying to build comparable exposure independently, the logistics are significant. “If you want to get exposure to these, it’s hard,” Schulhof says. “You have to open up accounts in those countries. So, we make it nice and convenient and easy to get that exposure.”
International holdings extend well beyond traditional Western music companies. K-pop, for example, has grown from a regional phenomenon into a global commercial force, and MUSQ holds positions in six to nine companies tied to the ecosystem—including Hybe, JYP Entertainment, SM Entertainment—all of which sit behind acts such as BTS and Monsta X. “K-pop has become such a big business,” says Schulhof. The genre’s infrastructure, spanning management, recording, publishing, and distribution, has become serious business, and MUSQ’s holdings reflect the full commercial chain.
Positioning MUSQ Inside Client Portfolios
Schulhof repeatedly frames MUSQ as both a thematic allocation and a diversification tool.
Unlike many technology-heavy growth strategies, MUSQ aims to spread exposure across recurring royalty revenue, live entertainment demand, equipment manufacturing, publishing, and streaming. Schulhof believes the structure may help reduce concentration risk relative to broader growth benchmarks. “You want diversification, but you also want nice growth as well—and you don’t have the volatility that you see with a lot of the big tech names today,” he points out.
Schulhof also describes MUSQ as a possible liquid alternative, a category advisors have increasingly leaned into as clients seek differentiated return drivers that don’t move in lockstep with broad equity indexes. “In many ways, our fund is a liquid alternative, and investors are looking for alternatives to add to their portfolios,” he says. “You’re getting access to the music industry, but you have liquidity with it. I think that’s a big selling point.”
Several elements of the music industry may appeal to advisors searching for differentiated growth drivers. Subscription revenue tends to be recurring. Intellectual property can generate cash flow over long periods. Global consumption patterns continue expanding through streaming adoption, social media, gaming integrations, and short-form video.
At the same time, Schulhof emphasizes accessibility. Many foreign-listed music companies remain difficult for individual investors to purchase directly, especially across Asian markets where streaming and entertainment consumption continue accelerating. “We’re just giving investors a taste of the whole music industry with this fund in a really easy, convenient, portable way,” he says.
Schulhof’s suggested allocation, 5–9%, is enough to be meaningful within a diversified portfolio without distorting existing exposures. As MUSQ approaches a milestone, Schulhof believes the strategy could draw additional advisor attention as the ETF builds a longer operating history. “We’re coming up on our third year anniversary this July, and investors should take note,” he says. “This fund is too big to ignore. The theme is too big to ignore.”
The Amplify Music Investment Summit’s success on launch suggests the broader conversation around music investing may still be in the early innings. Schulhof already plans to expand the event next year after demand exceeded expectations during the inaugural conference.
“We’re going to announce our second Amplify,” he reports. “We’re going to take a larger space because that was the only criticism, that the space was too small.”
Additional Resources
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Risk Disclosures
All investing involves risk, and asset allocation and diversification do not guarantee a profit or protection against a loss. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, might be worth more or less than their original cost. ETFs are subject to risks similar to those of stocks, as well as other risks specific to the particular ETF.
Shares are bought and sold at market price (not NAV) and are not individually redeemed from the Fund. ETF shares are traded on exchanges and are traded and priced throughout the trading day. ETFs permit an investor to purchase a selling interest in a portfolio of stocks throughout the trading day. Because ETFs trade on an exchange, ETF shares are bought and sold at market price (not NAV). The prices of ETFs may sometimes vary significantly from the NAVs of an ETFs’ underlying securities. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns. The returns shown do not represent the returns you would receive if you traded shares at other times. The market price returns are based on the official closing price of an ETF share or, if the official closing price isn’t available, the midpoint between the national best bid and national best offer (“NBBO”) as of the time the ETF calculates current NAV per share. NAVs are calculated using prices as of 4:00 PM Eastern Time.
MUSQ Global Music Industry ETF is offered by prospectus. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. This and other important information can be found in the MUSQ ETF prospectus, which should be read carefully before investing and can be obtained by visiting our website www.musqetf.com, or by calling 888-MUSQETF (888-687-7383).
Exchange Traded Concepts, LLC serves as the investment advisor to the Fund. The Fund is distributed by SEI Investments Distribution Co (SIDCO). SIDCO is not affiliated with Exchange Traded Concepts, LLC.
