In this episode of ETF Spotlight, I talked with Jeremie Capron, Managing Partner & Director of Research at ROBO Global. Robo Global is the creator of the first index to track the global robotics, automation and artificial intelligence industry. This index is the benchmark for ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (NASDAQ:ROBO) .
Robots and AI are improving and becoming an integral part of our lives. Almost every day, we learn about some new real-life benefits of these innovative technologies.
Jeremie highlighted some of the key growth areas in this field and why investors should not ignore this rapidly evolving and exponentially growing space.
We then discussed the index created by Robo Global. The company has a team of experts that looks at the entire robotics and automation landscape to identify the companies to be included in the index.
Jeremie explained the process of selection of constituents—bellwether as well as non-bellwether. He also talked about the benefits of equal weighing approach, which largely eliminates single stock risk.
About 40% of ETF assets are invested in US companies and rest in international companies. Japanese companies get about 28% allocation, which makes sense since Japan has been a leader in robotics.
So, in addition to familiar US names like iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) , Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) , Rockwell Automation (NYSE:ROK) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) , we see a lot of non-US companies in the ETF.
Jeremie talked about some foreign companies that are at the forefront of these technologies.
Finally, we discussed impressive earnings growth of some of these companies, which resulted in the index’s impressive return of 47% in 2017. Jeremie explained that despite this surge, many companies still look very attractive from valuation perspective.
To learn more about the world of robotics, automation & AI and the ROBO ETF, please listen to the podcast and visit https://roboglobal.com/.
And please visit the ETF section of zacks.comfor more information on this ETF and other ETFs.
Please make sure to tune in for our next podcast. If you have any comments or question, please email podcast@zacks.com
Disclosure: I own ROBO for the Zacks ETF Investor portfolio.
ROBO GR&AI (ROBO): ETF Research Reports
Rockwell Automation, Inc. (ROK): Free Stock Analysis Report
iRobot Corporation (IRBT): Free Stock Analysis Report
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (ISRG): Free Stock Analysis Report
NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA): Free Stock Analysis Report
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