Back to PEJ and why its recent retrenchment at the hands of fast-food protests may represent a buying opportunity. Sonic (NasdaqGM: SONC), Domino’s Pizza (NYSE: DPZ), Dunkin’ Brands (NasdaqGM: DNKN) and Wendy’s, all of which are among the 10 fast food chains costing U.S. taxpayers the most money, combine for over 10% of PEJ’s weight.
But, and this is an important “but,” PEJ qualifies as a smart beta ETF. The ETF’s holdings are selected based on “price momentum, earnings momentum, quality, management action, and value,” according to PowerShares. [Some Smart-Beta ETFs Draw Praise]
Translation: Say the McDonald’s is forced to pay its workers $15 an hour, which would mean the same would probably apply to all of the aforementioned names. That would likely be bad news for the stocks, but those names would either see reduced weights in PEJ or be removed from the ETF altogether at the quarterly rebalance.
As it is, Chipotle is no longer in PEJ. More importantly, just two restaurant stocks – Starbucks and Sonic – are found among the ETF’s top-10 holdings. In other news regarding stocks no longer residing in PEJ is Krispy Kreme and that is good news because the shares are down 23% this week. And more important than that are the stocks that currently dominate PEJ.
That would be Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS), Wynn (NasdaqGM: WYNN), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Priceline (NasdaqGM: PCLN). Sands and Wynn combine for 10.3% of PEJ’s weight and that is a good as the former hit a new 52-week high Thursday and the latter is close to doing the same.
PowerShares Dynamic Leisure and Entertainment Portfolio
