The VanEck Social Sentiment ETF, launched with the support of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday and could generate notable moves in several technology and industrial stocks in the coming weeks, says Jim Cramer.
Buzz ETFs, as is often mentioned, are built around 75 stocks – each with a minimum market cap of $ 5 billion – that were chosen by an algorithm based on their positive social media sentiment. It will begin trading on the NYSE under the symbol BUZZ and is managed by VanEck Associates Corp.
The 75 shares will be rebalanced each month, with added replacements and underperforming shares removed, based on what its founders call the highest degree of “positive investor sentiment”, extracted from the study of approximately 15 million posts in various social networks.
TheStreet founder Jim Cramer said on Thursday that the ETF and its stock selection technique are “fascinating” and will likely move many of the 75 names inside if traders take over Portnoy’s call to invest in it.
“Social media and mobile technology have fundamentally changed the way we engage with our actions,” the ETF website said. “There are a lot of online conversations every day. Changing our feelings and collective views clearly affects their value.”
The ETF itself was down 1.11% to $ 24.13 at the start of trading on Thursday, down 0.17% on the Nasdaq Composite Index.
Twitter (TWTR) – Get the report shares, the highest allocation in the ETF, at 3.52%, were marked by 1.5% lower, at 69.70 USD each, but increased by over 77% in the last six months.
The second largest sports betting group, DraftKings (DKNG) – Get the report, was marked 1.3% lower at $ 64.90, a move that reduces its six-month gain to about 80%.
Ford Motor Co. (F) – Get the report, the third largest allocation, rose 0.2% more to $ 12.20 each and rose 77.5% in the past six months.
Other participations in EFT include Facebook (FB) – Get the report (at 3% of total holdings), Amazon (AMZN) – Get the report (2.94%), Apple (AAPL) – Get the report (2.9%) and Tesla (TSLA) – Get the report (2.75%).