Are new ETF launches a sign that markets are overheated?

In echoes of the dotcom boom when new fund launches rose tenfold int he y ear before the bubble burst, the rate of new ETF launches targeting hot new sectors could be a sign that things are getting out of hand.

Here's a warning sign that a market is overheated: new fund launches. In the year before the dotcom bubble popped in 2000, UK tech fund launches rose nearly tenfold. It's a key problem with the financial industry a fund is easy to sell when a theme is popular, but by then its best days are behind it and its worst typically just ahead. The equivalent indicator today? Exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs are easier to establish than traditional funds, so hot new sectors can be targeted rapidly. ETFs are also increasingly the go-to option for investors more than $250bn went into ETFs in 2017's first half, compared with $81bn for mutual funds, notes researcher FactSet.

There are many examples of ETF launches as contrarian indicators. The Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (NYSE: LIT) launched in 2010, when the market was last getting excited about lithium, a key part of electric car batteries. In the six months following the share price went from around $33 to $45. Then, for a long five years, it slid, hitting a low of below $18 in early 2016. It only regained the $33 mark last month, now that lithium is "hot" again. Or there's the VanEck Vectors Uranium & Nuclear Energy ETF (NYSE: NLR), whose August 2007 launch coincided with the uranium price hitting a record high, then collapsing.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.