Of note in today’s early action is the steep sell-off in AAPL thus far (traded as low as $99.90 already) on news coming from rival Samsung regarding product releases, and this should not be taken lightly.
It took AAPL some gusto to get above split-adjusted $100 in the first place, and most of August, only to see recent gains evaporate rather quickly on a Wednesday morning.
Options activity around the $100 handle has been notable in the past several weeks as well, and there is no reason to think with today’s volatility that this will slow down at any point in the near future. AAPL is dragging the Nasdaq 100 this morning and linked ETF QQQ (PowerShares QQQ, Expense Ratio 0.20%) as it is struggling to get in the green with the SPX, DJIA, and other indexes trading at new highs.
We remind folks that AAPL has a greater than 13% weighting in the Nasdaq 100 and corresponding ETF QQQ, so days like today are often rough on holders of cap-weighted Nasdaq-linked ETFs. IYW (iShares U.S. Technology, Expense Ratio 0.46%) actually has the highest individual weighting to AAPL (>18%) of any U.S. listed ETP, followed by the popular XLK (SPDR Technology Select Sector, Expense Ratio 0.16%) which carries a greater than 15% weighting.
The growing, in both terms of asset size and level of familiarity among advisors, FTEC (Fidelity MSCI Information Technology, Expense Ratio 0.12%, $232 million in AUM), has a greater than 14.7% weighting in AAPL, which is comparable to the level of exposure in VGT (Vanguard Information Tech, Expense Ratio 0.14%).
While AAPL appears to be in a bear/bull fight once again at the $100 level, portfolio managers may look to adjust exposures accordingly either on a single stock basis to protect recent gains if not on an ETF/portfolio level, so we would not only focus on market cap weighted “AAPL” heavy ETFs in the near term but also a handful of “equal weighted” names in the space that are technology sector centric, just with level exposure across the sector, sans the AAPL overweight.
The $252 million QTEC (First Trust Nasdaq-100 Technology Sector, Expense Ratio 0.60%), as well the $452 million QQEW (First Trust Nasdaq-100 Equal Weighted, Expense Ratio 0.60%), and Direxion’s QQQE (Direxion Nasdaq-100 Equal Weighted, Expense Ratio 0.35%) always come to mind when AAPL is in distress like it is today.
With AAPL also being the highest weighted member of the cap-weighted SPX (>3.3% weighting) and linked ETFs like SPY (SPDR S&P 500, Expense Ratio 0.09%) and IVV (iShares Core S&P 500, Expense Ratio 0.07%) sharing the same characteristics, RSP (Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight, Expense Ratio 0.40%) may get a fresh look from some here as well.
PowerShares QQQ
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