YODA: the ETF that looks to outer space arrives at the London Stock Exchange

1. Javier Collado

"Do it or don't do it, but don't try it," said Master Yoda in Star Wars. This is what HANetf and Procure Innovation must have thought when betting on the creation of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that focuses on the space industry and that has arrived on the London Stock Exchange a few days ago.

This is the first ETF in Europe dedicated exclusively to the space industry. The creators of the background have presented it with the ticker YODA, alluding to the character from Star Wars.

This fund replicates the S-Network Procure Space index, which has a focus on communications satellite systems. Thus, its main portfolio company is SKY Perfect JSAT (5.2%), followed by Dish Network (5.1%) and Eutelsat (5%), all three of satellite communications.

Another similar one, from Procure Innovation, has been listed on the Nasdaq since 2019 with the ticker UFO (the acronym for unidentified flying object -UFO-, in English).

The ETF bets on three dozen companies that "receive at least 50% of their income or benefits from one or more segments of the space industry", something in which "under normal circumstances" it will invest 80% of its capital.

This other fund is linked to the S-Network Space index, compiled by S-Network Global Indexes, who believes that the space-related industry will boom in the future. They mention possibilities with the colonization of space and the creation of infrastructures , the exploration and extraction of resources beyond planetary borders, military systems, space tourism and space technologies that allow all these options.

The UFO currently manages almost 130 million dollars in assets, and it left just over 2% in 2020 after the sharp drop due to the pandemic from which it failed to recover, but it is up 19% so far of 2021 and 22% since its creation.

The largest company that UFO has in its portfolio is Orbcomm, with 6.5% of the total, a company that has 31 communications satellites in orbit, among other things, and that is up 65% on the Nasdaq so far this year. anus.

Dish Network, Garmin and Sirius XM Holdings follow in prominence, with more than 5% of the portfolio, while Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's company that bets on commercial flights to space, remains at 4.9%.

The two most mediatic brands are left out of both funds, as they are not listed companies: SpaceX, by Elon Musk, which was valued last April at about 74,000 million dollars and which has positioned itself as the main contractor of NASA ; and Blue Origin, by Jeff Bezos, which is also committed to suborbital flights. Bezos himself has announced that on July 20 he will travel to space with his brother on the first flight with passengers that the company will carry out.