(Bloomberg) — An ETF that sought to tap into the day-trading boom by riding the hottest meme-friendly stocks is now packed with cash and so many dull names that its own manager says the strategy “puts me to sleep.”
The FOMO exchange-traded fund (ticker FOMO) was named after the famous acronym for “fear of missing out” and was designed to buy stocks that reflected current or emerging trends, according to its prospectus. But right now almost 40% of the fund is in cash and its biggest holding is in Chevron Corp.
It’s a far cry from the meme-stock mania a year ago that helped inspire the ETF, which launched in May. Back then the likes of GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings were soaring as small-time investors bid up left-for-dead equities, battering institutional pros who bet against them.
FOMO appears to have missed out. Fund assets never got above $10 million, and the ETF closed at an all-time low on Jan. 21, almost a year after the peak of the GameStop frenzy. The video game retailer and cinema chain were both in the fund at launch. Now aside from cash and Chevron it holds the likes of Newmont Corp., Campbell Soup Co. and Charles Schwab Corp.
“You can’t ignore what the market’s telling you and it’s telling you that if you’re not invested in Procter & Gamble and Chevron, you’re catching a falling knife,” said Matt Tuttle, CEO of Connecticut-based Tuttle Capital Management LLC, which runs the fund. “Earnings matter again and valuations matter again.”
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