Last year, approximately 200 exchange traded products made debuts in the U.S. with an oft-cited glum statistic being that by the end of the year, close to half those products had failed to attract at least $10 million in assets.
However, some funds are proving 2014 could be remembered as year when some new ETFs achieved rapid success. The PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (NYSEArca: HACK) is one 2014’s rookie ETFs that easily deserves the label “successful” and that status has been further cemented with news that HACK has topped $1 billion in assets under management.
“Due to the steady stream of data breaches across the globe, cyber security remains a top-of-mind concern for corporate entities, governments, and individuals,” said PureFunds CEO Andrew Chanin in a statement.
Undoubtedly, what is bad news in the world of cyber security in terms of data breaches and thefts turns into good news for HACK and its 31 constituent firms. That is something that has been widely covered in this space and, recently, Goldman Sachs picked up on the theme.
According to Goldman, there have been 17 high-profile cyber security breaches since the second quarter of last year involving companies such as Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL), Tesla (NasdaqGS: TSLA), Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX) and, on multiple occasions, the federal government. HACK debuted in November, so it has been around for at least 10 of the cyber scrares mentioned by Goldman. [Headlines Help HACK]
Put simply, on nearly every occasion when an entity such as the U.S. government or a company Sony Pictures, such as Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL), Tesla (NasdaqGS: TSLA), Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX) suffer a cyber security breach, HACK rises and follows through. The ETF is up 25.1% this year, more than triple the 7.4% gain posted by the Nasdaq Composite. [New Highs for Cyber Security ETF]
HACK’s index “tracks the performance of companies actively engaged in providing services for cyber security and for which cyber security business activities are a key driver of their business model. These cyber security services are designed to protect computer hardware, software, networks and data from unauthorized access, vulnerabilities, attacks and other security breaches,” according to PureFunds.
There are some other superlatives surrounding HACK’s ascent to $1 billion in assets under management. First, that means the ETF has added about $250 million just this month. Second, HACK needed just eight months to get $1 billion. To put that into context, that is the same amount of time the First Trust Dorsey Wright Focus 5 ETF (NasdaqGM: FV), widely regarded as the most successful ETF to debut last year, needed to get to the same milestone.
PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF
