Money is pouring into one exchange-traded fund tied to the reopening trade.
Invesco’s Dynamic Leisure and Entertainment ETF (PEJ) has seen its assets climb from around $50 million a year ago to $700 million at the start of 2020 and more than $1.5 billion as of this Thursday, said John Hoffman, Invesco’s head of ETFs and indexed strategies for the Americas.
That’s nearly a 3,000% increase in a year, significant for a fund that has stayed relatively under the radar since its 2005 launch.
PEJ shares have climbed almost 71% in the past 12 months and just over 190% since the fund’s inception. It was up nearly half of 1% by midday Thursday.
“It sat at very low capital for a long period of time,” Hoffman told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Monday. “It was a way the clients looked at to position for this reopening trade, if you will.”
PEJ’s top five holdings are Sysco, Booking Holdings, Chipotle, Disney and Airbnb.
“These names were beaten up pretty good during the pandemic,” Hoffman said. “But … you’ve got a basket here of 32 companies focused in the leisure and entertainment [space], names that have been benefiting from the reopening trade, and we continue to see clients add capital to the portfolio — again, a precise way to get exposure to these names that have been beaten up so hard.”
The expected pickup in leisure and entertainment could fuel the market’s next leg higher, Douglas Yones, head of exchange-traded products at the New York Stock Exchange, said in the same “ETF Edge” interview.
“I think there is a bit of a natural excitement about bringing people back together and then going out and actually being able to do these things, and so, maybe that parlays into the next level of growth,” Yones said.
Disclosure: Invesco is the sponsor of CNBC’s “ETF Edge.”
