At the end of this month, Hong Kong will launch its first metaverse exchange-traded fund, joining two in the United States and four in South Korea. CSOP Asset Management will launch the CSOP Metaverse Concept ETF on February 21, according to People’s Daily affiliate China Fund News. The unit price and the minimum investment in the fund are around HKD7.80 (USD1) and HKD780 (USD100), respectively.
On June 30, 2021, the first metaverse-related ETF was introduced in the United States. According to its website, its assets accumulated roughly USD860 million as of Feb. 15, making it the world’s biggest such ETF. Its most heavily weighted stock is Nvidia, which accounts for 8.9 percent of the fund’s portfolio.
According to Citic Securities’ research report, the metaverse will be the next breakthrough invention after the mobile internet, but it is still in the idea and marketing stages. The CSOP Metaverse Concept ETF will primarily invest in companies that provide goods or services that support the metaverse’s development. The top ten assets in its planned portfolio include IT giant Meta, Apple, Sony Group, Tencent Holdings, and Roblox, as well as chipmakers Nvidia and Qualcomm.
Meta has the highest weighting in the portfolio, accounting for 6.4 percent. According to its results announcement on Feb. 2, the US tech behemoth’s net profit declined 8% to USD10.3 billion in the fourth quarter of last year from the same time in 2020, the first fall since the second quarter of 2019. Meta’s stock [NASDAQ: FB] has dropped more than 38% this year.
According to China Fund News, which cites industry investors, the metaverse has great investment potential in the medium and long term since it is in line with the general trend of technological advancement. It says that the semiconductor industry chain, cloud computing, virtual and augmented reality, and game industries are the most promising and worth investing in.