All that talk about growth stocks disappointing this year is proving inaccurate as the S&P 500 Growth Index is up about 23.1% year-to-date.
The Goldman Sachs Innovate Equity ETF (GINN) is among the exchange traded funds benefiting from steadiness in growth stocks. GINN has been showing some momentum as of late, as it’s higher by 2.74% over the past week and is flirting with all-time highs.
“The Morningstar US Large Broad Growth Index rose 1.6% in the third quarter, a muted return relative to its 28% rise over the last year but still topping the charts relative to small-cap, value-oriented indexes. Big tech continued to drive the market higher in the third quarter, notably for large-cap growth investors, with an Index overweight in Alphabet (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) driving performance in recent months,” according to Morningstar research.
GINN is home to over 460 stocks, a deep bench with essentially no single stock risk, but Alphabet and Facebook do combine for 4% of the exchange traded fund’s roster. The fund allocates 52.2% of its combined weight to the technology and communications services sectors.
That’s noteworthy because not only are those sectors epicenters of large- and mega-cap growth, they are also bastions of quality. Those sectors are loaded with large- and mega-cap stocks that are among the most cash-rich companies in the U.S., making them favored destinations for investors even in volatile market environments. In fact, owing to those quality traits, large-cap growth is now very much a flight-to-safety play, indicating that GINN offers investors a broader usage case than many may realize.
“Big, well-known Technology names continue to benefit from investors flight to safety, particularly in a quarter which saw heightened market volatility and declines in the U.S. equity market,” says Dan Lefkovitz, Morningstar index strategist. “Yet the smaller side of the market has seen relative safety in value-oriented stocks in recent months. This illustrates the benefit to investor of having an insightful and nuanced set of tools to better understand the style dynamics and push and pull in play across investment styles and caps in the current market environment.”
GINN also allocates almost 18% of its weight to healthcare stocks. While that’s often viewed as a defensive sector, it has more growth attributes than it’s given credit for, making a sensible exposure for GINN. Importantly, large-cap healthcare is also chock full of high-quality companies with strong balance sheets.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Future ETFs Channel.
The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.