Space is the place and Ark Invest is moving in.
The investment firm, led by Cathie Wood, has poured over half a billion dollars into the Space Exploration and Innovation ETF (ARKX) launched on March 30th. Some analysts suggest that wealth could top $ 1 billion in a few days.
However, some of the fund’s investors may not know exactly what they are getting into, said Todd Rosenbluth, senior director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA Research.
The fund’s impressive inflows may “be a sign that investors are interested in something that Cathie Wood and her team will manage, but I’m not sure they will fully appreciate what they are getting,” said Rosenbluth this week against CNBC’s “ETF Edge”.
Although ARKX invests in purer games of space racing like satellite stocks Iridium Communications, its other holdings are a mosaic of old-line industries, internet companies, and names of agriculture, Rosenbluth said.
As of Friday, the top positions were geolocation company Trimble, Ark’s own 3D printing ETF (PRNT), Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, L3Harris Technologies and JD.com. The ETF also owns shares in Netflix and the agricultural company Deere.
“ETF thematic investments can often be interpreted, so the way Ark describes its space ETF includes companies that benefit from aerospace activities or technologies in support of aerospace,” said Rosenbluth.
This could include Netflix and Deere, which Rosenbluth acknowledged would likely benefit from the space race in the long term, but those come at the expense of some potentially important exclusions, he said.
“It’s not companies like Loral Space and Communications that you would find in UFO,” said Rosenbluth, referring to Procure’s rival Space ETF.
Disclaimer of liability
Comments are closed.