In first partnership with Fubon Asset Management, Solactive delivers Metaverse Index underlying first ETF in that realm for the Taiwanese market
Decades have passed since the establishment of the first virtual worlds, such as World of Warcraft or Second Life, and developers’ aspirations to create immersive universes where users can roam freely have not reduced their pace. Many big techs start to see this revolutionary concept as their next direction of development. Meta’s (formerly known as Facebook) new ‘Metaverse’ depicts the latest development in that segment, and, through the inclusion of virtual reality content in real life, so called augmented reality, both the digital and non-digital world increasingly coalesce. In its first engagement with major ETF issuer Fubon Asset Management, Solactive now releases its Solactive Metaverse Index, including publicly listed companies that potentially stand to benefit from the adoption and usage of technologies expected to grow and support the functioning of the metaverse. Fubon Asset Management has now listed an ETF tracking the index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, raising 5.3bn TWD during the initial public offering phase.
With a growing demand in both virtual and augmented reality services, recent studies project the metaverse opportunity to reach at least $800 USD billion of market capitalization by 2024[1]. The Fubon Metaverse ETF (Stock code: 00903) enables investors to capture the massive performance potential of companies operating in the fields of Metaverse technology, platforms, devices, interchange standards, and data processing. The Solactive Metaverse Index includes companies headquartered in one of the countries that are part of the Developed Markets[2], including South Korea and Taiwan and excluding any listings on a local exchange in China.
The selection procedure of the Solactive Metaverse Index is done based on screening of publicly available information such as financial news, business profiles, and company publications using ARTIS®, Solactive’s proprietary big data and natural language processing (NLP) algorithm. ARTIS® is utilizing advanced algorithms to parse high volumes of public documents to evaluate companies’ exposure to specific themes or topics. Each company identified by ARTIS® receives a score that reflects its exposure to the index strategy. This set of companies are then reviewed to ensure relevance to the theme of the index based on business operations. Companies that do not exhibit relevant business exposure to the theme are removed from the selection process at this stage.
Timo Pfeiffer, Chief Markets Officer at Solactive, comments: “I still remember the absorbing experience of two grey blocks passing a giant pixel to each other many years ago, when digital worlds were coming along, and I am impressed by how far we have come. Now, with technology progressing and computation power rising – together with the changes triggered by the Covid pandemic – unimaginable worlds can be created and experienced in virtual spaces, and our non-digital world can be enhanced through augmented reality, which offers widespread application in our daily lives. With our spirit of innovation, we aim at delivering the latest trends in investing to our clients and we are happy that Fubon Asset Management shares this mindset with us. We’re excited to be part of such a cutting-edge product and look forward to further partnerships with Fubon Asset Management.”
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/the-metaverse-is-already-now-four-surprising-bi-charts/
[2] As defined by the Solactive Country Classification Framework