March 26, 2008 at 11:00 am by Tom Lydon
Motorola (MOT) announced today that it was going to split itself in two, but so far the impact on technology and networking exchange traded funds (ETFs) doesn’t seem apparent.
The company’s stock has fallen 45% in the last year, reports the Dealbook in the New York Times, and the breakup doesn’t come as a surprise. The plan is to separate the cell phone unit from its broadband and mobility operations. With the news, shares of Motorola were up just a smidge in intraday trading.
Motorola sits in these ETFs:
- iShares Dow Jones US Technology (IYW): Motorola is 1.2%, year-to-date it’s down 13%
- iShares S&P GSTI Networking (IGN): Motorola is 4.6%, year-to-date it’s down 16.6%
- Vanguard Information Technology (VGT): Motorola is 1.4%, year to date it’s down 12.7%
It remains to be seen if Motorola’s move will be successful and help it compete against big rivals such as Nokia, Samsung and Apple. If the decision to split was the right one, these ETFs could see some benefit. However, the company isn’t in the top five holdings for any of them, so any impact wouldn’t be overwhelming.
