Now nearly four months past its September initial public offering, Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is steadily appearing in more exchange traded funds.
That includes the $67.7 million Guggenheim China Technology ETF (NYSEArca: CQQQ). CQQQ added Alibaba at the ETF’s fourth-quarter rebalance, which took placed on Dec. 19. Alibaba is now the ETF’s third-largest holding at a weight of nearly 7.5%, trailing only Tencent (OTC: TCEHY), China’s largest Internet company, and Baidu (NasdaqGS: BIDU), that country’s largest provider of Internet search services.
Prior to Alibaba’s IPO, the company faced widely discussed index issues because of its decision to incorporate in the Cayman Islands. That, among other issuers, has prevented the stock from entering major benchmarks sponsored by FTSE Group and MSCI (NYSE: MSCI).
However, a week before the IPO, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced it would assign Alibaba a China domicile, allowing for the stock’s inclusion in S&P global benchmarks. [Alibaba Index Prospects Improve]
The S&P decision opened the door for AlphaShares, issuer of CQQQ’s underlying index, to consider adding Alibaba. In the days leading up to the Alibaba IPO, AlphaShares noted Alibaba’s inclusion in CQQQ was not a done deal because the index provider was waiting on Alibaba’s industry classification from Standard & Poor’s. S&P has yet to announce whether it will classify Alibaba as a technology company or a member of the consumer discretionary sector. [Alibaba Will Join at Least one Guggenheim ETF]
CQQQ is Morningstar’s top-performing China Region ETF for the trailing 3-year period ended 12/31/2014, according to Guggenheim.