September 2020: Week 3
Edition #011 - Data recap of last week's big moves inside the Tech ETF landscape. See what to keep an eye on for the week ahead.
Two weeks ago I commented how “we saw some retracement in the market. While last week seemed to hold positive, this most recent week has shown more strength in the Russell 2000 index compared to the Nasdaq 100 ($QQQ).
Given the Tech ETF landscape and its relation to $QQQ, this could prove to be another interesting week ahead.
Anyway, let’s jump right into it…
Weekly Changes:
Out of 114 Tech ETFs analysed, the average Tech ETFs just managed to squeak in another positive week last week, gaining on average 0.02%, albeit thanks to 2 inverse ETFs in the top 5 rankings (which go up when stock prices go down).
The S&P 500 fared worse with a drop of 2.03%, seeing red for the second week in a row.
As mentioned the leaders of this the week included two inverse ETFs $TECS (Direxion Daily Technology Bear 3X Shares) and $REW (ProShares Ultra Short Technology) as well as some familiar names that we’ve seen over the last 10 weeks of FinLister like $ARKK (ARK Innovation ETF) and $BATT (Amplify Advanced Battery Metals and Materials ETF)
The top stock of the week from this cohort was small cap $LAC (Lithium Americas Corp) just reaching $1b in market cap.
Meanwhile $NVTA (InVitae Corp) at $5b seems to have started to turn its year around in the last two weeks, and is now up 150% year to date.
$TSLA (Tesla) also managed to claw back some of its gains after some profit taking occurred as the stock traded at all-time-highs at the start of the month.
Meanwhile, as covered in last weeks issue there has been a development in rival transportation company as $NKLA (Nikola) Executive Chairman and face of the company Trevor Milton has parted ways with the company: short seller Hindenburg Research published a damning memo on the deal and company titled: Nikola: How to Parlay An Ocean of Lies Into a Partnership With the Largest Auto OEM in America.in which the firm outlines why they “believe Nikola is an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies over the course of its Founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton’s career.”
After two solid weeks in the top 5, $PRNT (3D Printing ETF) a passive index from Ark Holdings saw itself on the losing end of the week.
Year-To-Date:
Of the 107 ETFs which have been around YTD, the average return sits at 18.11% (up from 16.4% last week. The S&P 500 ended the week lower at 2.95% YTD returns.
The top 5 constituents saw another slight shake up compared to last week.
$ARKW and $ARKK stayed in the top 2 spots but switched positions/
$FNGS dropped from 3rd to 5th
$CWEB (as $KWEB) rose from 6th to 3rd
$HERO stayed in 4th
and $OGIG fell out of the 5th spot.
Inside the top 5 stocks from these ETFs, $MCRB (Seres Therapeutics Inc) held steady on the week, gaining just 5% on its YTD figure.
$TSLA had a stronger week moving back up just passed 400%, as did $SE (Sea Limited).
$GSX (GSX Techedu Inc) has shot itself back into the top despite it’s short interest which I noted in at the end of July.
As always, hope this issue gives you a better footing to start the week off on.
Following on from last weeks IPO it would be remiss of me to not bring up $SNOW (Snowflake). Which as of this time last week was priced to “IPO on Wednesday the 16th; somewhere around a $24b market cap”, the IPO was priced up multiple times over the following 48 hours of me sending last weeks email.
“But demand was so strong that shares finally wound up opening early Wednesday afternoon at $245 a share and quickly climbed above $300, for a 150% gain. Shares pulled back a bit as the day wore on but still finished the day with a nearly 112% gain…At its closing price of just under $254, Snowflake is valued at $70 billion.”
The stock is currently set to open this week at $226/share, at around a $60b market cap.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on what ETFs ultimately add $SNOW to their holdings, although it will most likely take at least two full quarters before most pick the stock up.
Thanks again for reading,
Stuart