After being confined to our homes for over a year, it’s time to consider more traveling and reconnecting. On Friday, Defiance ETFs launched the Hotels, Airlines, and Cruise ETF ($CRUZ) – “the travel reopening trade.” Defiance’s CRUZ ETF gives investors access to stocks from the global travel industry in a post-Covid world.
More specifically, CRUZ gives retail and institutional investors exposure to a cross-section of companies believed to have significant growth potential. It seeks to track the performance before fees and expenses of the BlueStar Global Hotels, Airlines, and Cruises Index, a rules-based weighted index of companies primarily engaged in the passenger airline, hotel, and cruise industries.
The BlueStar Global Hotels, Airlines, and Cruises Index is a rules-based index that consists of globally-listed stocks of companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the passenger airline, hotel and resort, or cruise industries as determined by MV Index Solutions.
New Flights to Remember
The pre-Covid travel and tourism industry constituted 10% of the world economy and contributed $8.9 trillion to world GDP. The pandemic has cost the sector an estimated $3.3 trillion; that’s a lot of suppressed demand and growth potential. COVID-19 shut borders, canceled flights, beached ships, and shuttered hotels. As vaccinations are rolled out and many governments can slowly dismantle protective measures, the trauma, frustrations, and sacrifices of the pandemic could fuel a renewed desire for travel. Some have even suggested that consumers may seek to compensate for the past year’s restrictions with longer, further, and more expensive holidays.
As of mid-2021, Defiance can already see the tentative buds of growing customer confidence and a reviving economy. But the exact pace and dynamic of the post-pandemic reopening is hard to identify. That’s why Defiance believes an ETF with broad coverage of the travel industry could help investors benefit from sector growth while mitigating the risk of over-exposure to any single company.
“The travel reopening trade is here. With a resurgence of travelers over Memorial Day weekend, Americans finally experienced life away from quarantine and back to the beach. The AAA is estimating that over 37 million Americans traveled over Memorial Day weekend. Demand for travel-related services are expected to increase over the course of summer, which should significantly benefit airline, cruise line, and hotel stocks,” says Sylvia Jablonski, Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Defiance ETFs.
Founded in 2018, Defiance is a FinTech asset manager and an exchange traded funds (ETFs) sponsor focused on the next generation of investors. $CRUZ joins Defiance’s suite of disruptive ETFs, which includes Psychedelic ETF ($PSY), NextGen H2 ($HDRO), the first SPAC ETF ($SPAK), and the first 5G ETF ($FIVG).
For more information, visit defianceetfs.com/CRUZ.