Amazon.com’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) famed Prime Day is here and investors looking to tap into that theme via exchange traded funds have a friend in the ProShares Online Retail ETF (NYSEArca: ONLN).
ONLN, which is a year old, tracks the ProShares Online Retail Index. That benchmark includes companies that principally sell online or through other non-store channels, such as mobile or app purchases, rather than through bricks-and-mortar store locations. Component holdings must be classified as an online retailer, an e-commerce retailer, or an internet or direct marketing retailer, according to standard industry classification systems.
With shares of Amazon residing over $2,000, some investors may want to opt for ONLN’s lower price tag, but the fund is still a potent avenue to shares of Amazon. ONLN allocates over a quarter of its weight to Amazon and is higher by 27.1% year-to-date.
“Amazon Prime Day is here. Will it be another record-breaker?,” said ProShares in a note out Monday.
“It’s not just events like this that have led to online retail’s impressive growth. Global e-commerce sales have more than doubled from $1.34 trillion in 2014 to $2.84 trillion in 2018.”
Pumped For Prime Day
Looking ahead, by 2020, online sales are projected to surpass $4 trillion, with the biggest players in the field largely expected to capture a major share of the growing pie. For example, Amazon is estimated to account for half of all online sales by 2023. Meanwhile, the Chinese online retailer Alibaba has also exhibited its presence in the e-commerce segment after setting a Singles Day record in 2018 with more than $30 billion in sales over a 24 hour period.
ONLN “gives you access to online retail’s growth opportunity by pinpointing retailers that principally sell online or through other non-store channels, and then zeroing in on the largest, most iconic companies in the space—like Amazon and Alibaba,” according to ProShares.
Beyond Prime Day, there are significant tailwinds for online retail and ETFs such as ONLN.
“It is projected that by 2021, annual online purchases will reach 17.5% of total global sales,” according to ProShares. “By 2020, over 2 billion people are expected to be digital buyers, a 19% increase from 2018.”
For more investing strategies, visit our Core ETF Channel.