Pass on this ETF

Article Excerpt

SIMPLIFY VOLT CLOUD AND CYBERSECURITY DISRUPTION ETF $5.95 (New York symbol VCLO) is an actively managed fund that invests in companies that it believes are positioned to lead developments in cloud-based data management and security. The portfolio is concentrated, with large holdings in Crowdstrike, Cloudflare, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, and Fortinet. The ETF launched on December 28, 2020 but only has a small asset base of $5.0 million—even after almost two years. The MER is a high 0.95%. Since the fund launched in 2020, it has lost 44% of its value. This is a poor performance—the Nasdaq 100 index is down just 20% over the same period, and the First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (see left) is down only 16%. Apart from the obvious drawbacks of the fund, such as the small asset base, the high fees and poor performance, the ETF also sells call options on the stocks it holds to generate an extra income stream. However, these sales tend to limit any capital gains that fund’s…