The boom in tech shares continues, and most people also believe that the ETF business will continue to see price gains. The healthcare sector is also expected to do well thanks to AI.
13 February 2024. FRANKFURT (Börse Frankfurt). Endless tech euphoria, also in the ETF business. "Technology ETFs are still very much in demand," reports Leo Puschmann, who trades ETFs at Lang & Schwarz. Frank Mohr from Société Générale also reports a lot of interest in the tech sector, as well as the major indices - with good turnover.
Driven by the fantasy surrounding the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), the Nasdaq 100 climbed above the 18,000 point mark for the first time yesterday, Monday. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones also reached new all-time highs. After reaching a new high of 17,049.50 last week, the DAX only just missed another record high yesterday. On Tuesday morning, the index stands at 16,940 points.
MSCI World trackers remain particularly popular, especially the iShares Core MSCI World (IE00B4L5Y983), according to traders. However, individual MSCI World ETFs are also being sold, Mohr notes, such as currency-hedged (IE00B441G979) and SRI variants (LU1615092217). US equities (IE00B3XXRP09) were - unlike in the previous week - much sought after again. European equities, on the other hand, flew out of the portfolios. Also in demand: Nasdaq trackers such as the iShares Nasdaq 100 (DE000A0F5UF5), as Puschmann notes.
Tech ETFs with annual returns of over 20 percent
Trading in sector ETFs also revolves very much around technology stocks. Extremely sought-after at Lang & Schwarz and Société Générale: the iShares S&P 500 Information Technology Sector (IE00B3WJKG14) and Xtrackers Artificial Intelligence & Big Data (IE00BGV5VN51). The ETFs now have three-year returns of 21 percent and 13.2 percent per year. According to Mohr, the WisdomTree Cloud Computing (IE00BJGWQN72) is also being invested in.
Healthcare: opportunities through AI?
In addition, the healthcare sector is currently experiencing a lot of popularity - also due to hopes regarding AI, for example in cancer detection and treatment. According to Mohr, the Xtrackers MSCI World Health Care (IE00BM67HK77) and iShares Healthcare Innovation (IE00BYZK4776) are two examples. On the other hand, real estate ETFs, such as the iShares European Property Yield (IE00B0M63284), were on the sell-off lists. This fund suffered significant price losses, particularly in 2022, and has been trending sideways since then.
Shares from the defense industry are a taboo for many and are also excluded from most sustainable ETFs. However, in light of the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, they are attracting more and more interest: HANetf's Future of Defense (IE000OJ5TQP4), launched in July 2023, has just exceeded the USD 50 million mark in assets under management, as the issuer reports. The slightly older VanEck Defense (IE000YYE6WK5), which was launched in April 2023, already has 124 million euros under management. Both focus on companies from the defense and cyber security sectors. Defense stocks have performed very well since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and are continuing to rise this year.
Still wanted: Money market ETFs
Money market ETFs remain extremely popular in the bond sector, according to Société Générale, specifically from Lyxor (FR0010510800) and Xtracker (LU0290358497). However, US government bonds with short (IE00B14X4S71) and medium maturities (<IE00B3VWN39>) are also being bought a lot.
Crypto ETN trading is currently rather quiet at Lang & Schwarz. Bitcoin rose above the USD 50,000 mark yesterday (Monday) - for the first time since the end of 2021. Bitcoin trackers from ETC Group (DE000A27Z304), 21Shares (CH0454664001), VanEck (DE000A28M8D0) and WisdomTree (GB00BJYDH287), as well as Solana trackers (CH1114873776), are currently heavily traded on Xetra.
by Anna-Maria Borse, 13 February 2024 © Deutsche Börse AG
Anna-Maria Borse is a financial and business editor specializing in the financial market/stock exchange and economic topics.
Feedback and questions to redaktion@deutsche-boerse.com
Borse