As technology grows more sophisticated, innovators have compressed the advancements into smaller devices, allowing many consumers to even wear high-tech products. With a rising industry of wearables, investors may also access the growth through a targeted exchange traded fund.
“WEAR believes this category is poised to capture transformational technology in real life applications for leisure, healthcare, military, and industrial applications,” according to WEAR Exchange Traded Funds, the name behind the Wearables Technology ETF (BATS: WEAR), which Eve Capital and ETC Services launched late last year.
WEAR seeks to capture the growth from within the wearable technology segment, including the relatively new segment of companies that produce watches, health trackers like Fitbit, medical applications, body cameras, GPS enabled child tracking wristbands, employee health trackers, Google glasses and other wearable devices.
The underlying index also follows a modified equal weighting methodology where constituents are equal-weighted but core holdings are subject to a multiplier of 1.5 times the equal weight. The “core” holdings include securities of wearable tech companies that derive significant revenues from the sale of wearable devices, along with “non-core” holdings or those securities of wearable technology companies that derive minimal revenue from the sale of wearables.
According to EQM Indexes, sub-sectors include display, healthcare/medical, industrial/military, infotainment/lifestyle, semiconductors, sensors and sports/fitness.
The underlying index also includes a hefty U.S. weight, along with other markets including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan.
WEAR has revealed a quarterly return of 9.4% on March 31, 2017 and rose 10.33% since its inception on December 9, 2016.
The wearables industry is expected to grow to $19 billion by 2018 as products like Fitbit fitness trackers, Android Wear watches and the Apple Watch helped fuel a rise in mainstream awareness of wearable technologies, according to Juniper Research.
“With attractive growth rates after a new product launch because of the relative lower price points, decreasing costs, and improving technology; we believe wearables is an investment that has never looked better, “ Bryce Tillery, Managing Partner at Eve Capital, said in a note.
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