Shares of e-commerce giant Amazon (NasdaqGS: AMZN) surged 17% during Thursday’s after-hours session after the company reported a profit of $92 million, or 19 cents a share, after losing $126 million, or 27 cents a share, last year. Sales were $23.1 billion.
Analysts expected EPS of 15 cents on sales of $22.4 billion. The Seattle-based company forecast third-quarter sales of $23.3 billion to $25.5 billion. All of that should be good news for some exchange traded funds fortunate enough to be sporting big Amazon weights.
Thirty-four ETFs feature Amazon among their top 10 holdings, according to S&P Capital IQ data. Investors looking for those funds with meaningful Amazon allocations should look to focused offerings, including sector and industry ETFs.
Of course, Internet ETFs are great places to start. The $3.3 billion First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSEArca: FDN) had a 9.7% weight to Amazon as of July 22, making the stock FDN’s second-largest holding behind Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB). FDN’s primary rival, the $231.2 million PowerShares NASDAQ Internet Portfolio (NasdaqGS: PNQI), has a 9% Amazon weight, making the stock the ETF’s third-largest holding. [Investors Rotate Into Growth-Oriented Tech Stocks, ETFs]
Buoyed by strong performances from Amazon, Facebook, Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG) and others, FDN and PNQI are up an average of 17% this year, well ahead of the 8.7% gained by the Nasdaq Composite.
Cloud computing may not be the first thing investors think of when it comes to Amazon, but the First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund (NasdaqGM: SKYY) is a credible Amazon ETF with a 4% weight to the stock. Amazon’s cloud sales surged 81.4% to $1.824 billion in the second quarter.
SKYY also features a 4.2% weight to Netflix (NasdaqGS: NFLX), making it one of the largest ETF holders of that stock. With Facebook, Netflix and Amazon combining for over 12% of SKYY’s weight, the ETF is up almost 7% this year. [The Right Netflix ETFs]
With Amazon being classified as a member of the consumer discretionary, investors can access the stock via the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLY) and rival funds, but a better idea might just be the Market Vectors Retail ETF (NYSEArca: RTH). Last year’s best-performing consumer discretionary, RTH had an 11.6% weight to Amazon as of July 22, helping the ETF to a 7.1% year-to-date gain. RTH’s Amazon exposure has helped the ETF endure sluggish performances from Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Costco (NasdaqGS: COST) this year.
PowerShares NASDAQ Internet Portfolio
Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of Facebook.