Cloud computing has been a great place for investors in recent years and likely will remain so in the future, and Global X hopes to cash in with Tuesday’s launch of a fund that invests in companies plugged into the growing use of cloud computing technology, which entails providing computing services over the internet—otherwise known as the cloud.
The Global X Cloud Computing ETF (CLOU) tracks a modified market cap-weighted index containing companies that get at least 50 percent of their revenue from cloud computing activities. That includes internet-related businesses such as licensing and delivering software on a subscription basis, providing a platform for creating software applications, and providing virtualized computing infrastructure.
It also includes companies that manage server storage space and data center real estate investment trusts, and those that make or distribute cloud and edge computing infrastructure and hardware.
Its portfolio of 36 holdings is dominated by the U.S., at 88 percent by country weight. Other countries represented are Canada, New Zealand and China.
The top holdings are Zscaler Inc., a cloud-based information security firm; Shopify Inc., a Canadian e-commerce company; Paycom Software Inc., which provides cloud-based human capital management software; Coupa Software Inc., a platform that helps businesses manage their spending; and Twilio Inc., a cloud communications platform.
Industry bellwethers within the portfolio include Salesforce.com Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.
According to Global X, the cloud computing industry was estimated at $188 billion in 2018 and is forecast to grow to more than $300 billion by 2022, representing a nearly 15 percent annualized growth rate fueled by falling storage and computing costs that are expected increase the adoption of cloud computing solutions.
The Global X fund’s expense ratio is 0.68 percent, or eight basis points more than the First Trust ISE Cloud Computing Index Fund (SKYY), a $2.2 billion ETF that launched in July 2011.
That fund tracks a modified market cap-weighted index of 28 companies that are classified into three business segments: pure-play cloud computing firms; non-pure plays that provide goods and services that support cloud computing; and technology conglomerates that indirectly utilize or support the use of cloud computing technology.
The top five holdings are Zynga Inc., VMware Inc., Netflix Inc., Facebook Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.