ROBO Global
- Jeremie Capron is the director of research for the ETF provider ROBO Global, which manages $4 billion.
- His firm invests in innovation stocks, focussing on AI, health tech, and robotics.
- Capron shared 23 disruptive tech stocks to buy right now across those three sectors.
Jeremie Capron believes the disruptive technology themes that his firm invests in could prove to be the most important innovations of the next decade.
“Robotics and intelligent machines can be as important as the internet,” ROBO Global’s director of research told Insider in a recent interview. “They’re as important as some of the technologies that dominated the start of the 20th century – electricity, the telephone, and the gas engine.”
“Those technologies revolutionized the economy at the time, and we think that robotics and autonomous machines are very comparable,” Capron added. “They’re a leap forward.”
An ETF (exchange-traded fund) tracks a specific sector, investing strategy, or theme. ROBO Global’s six listed ETFs invest in US and European AI, health tech, and robotics stocks.
“Every human application can use these machines to expand our reach, to enhance our accuracy and our speed,” Capron said. “It’s the best investment opportunity for our generation.”
“Our portfolios offer growth, but also stability,” he added. “The volatility isn’t like what you’d find in a concentrated basket of high-flying tech stocks.”
Capron talked Insider through ROBO Global’s three investment themes and shared 23 stocks that are well-exposed to disruptive tech tailwinds.
AI
Artificial intelligence will be one of the most important investing themes over the next decade, according to Capron. He said that ROBO Global launched its AI index, which trades under the ticker THNQ, because the theme was becoming suitably diversified from the broader robotics sector.
“Machine intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in automation, and there was a critical mass in terms of the number of companies involved to create a separate, more focussed portfolio,” Capron told Insider. “That’s why we started the AI fund.”
UBS recently listed AI as one of its new ‘ABCs of tech’, alongside big data and cybersecurity. They estimated that the services and hardware market alone will grow 20% a year to reach $90 billion within the next five years.
“AI is already widely used in areas such as navigation, pricing, advertising, facial recognition, and translation,” UBS analysts said. “In the years to come, we believe companies will increasingly turn to AI to improve customer experiences, reduce the cost of providing products and services, and develop new business lines.”
THNQ manages net assets of just over $40 million, and has delivered 9% returns this year.
Health tech
Capron told Insider that ROBO Global expanded into health tech after recognizing that robotics and AI can transform the healthcare sector over the next decade.
“Healthcare is the next sector that we think will be transformed by robotics and AI, and we wanted to be positioned early,” he said. “Healthcare’s one of the economic sectors that’s very poorly digitized so far – it’s actually comparable to mining or construction.”
“There’s a long runway in front of us to digitize healthcare, and there’s a number of technological breakthroughs that are very exciting, like surgical robots,” Capron added.
ROBO Global’s $220 million healthcare technology and innovation ETF, HTEC, has outperformed its competitors from blue-chip ETF providers, such as ARK Invest’s Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG) and iShares’ Global Healthcare ETF (IXJ), since the start of the pandemic. It concentrates on small- and mid-cap health stocks.
“The pace of adoption was slow prior to the pandemic, but now that the world has had a taste of a virtual waiting room, it’s here to stay, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” the ETF’s senior researcher Nina Deka told Insider in a recent interview. “80% of our portfolio had direct involvement with solving problems during the pandemic.”
Robotics
The robotics sector is where it all started for ROBO Global and Capron, who comes from a science and engineering background.
“ROBO Global’s team combines investment analysts and robotics industry experts,” Capron said. “Ten years ago, we could see the first signs that autonomous machines were just around the corner, and machine intelligence was making tremendous progress.”
“There’s so much innovation in the sector right now,” he said. “Robotics are generating investment returns in logistics and warehousing, in e–commerce, and in the healthcare sector as well.”
ROBO Global’s flagship robotics and automation index, which trades under the ROBO ticker, manages $1.9 billion of assets and has returned just under 14% this year.
Stocks to buy
Capron listed 23 stocks that are well-exposed to the three disruptive tech drivers covered by ROBO Global. Insider breaks them down below, listing their ticker, price, and market cap. All but two are listed on either the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ.
Markets Insider
Ticker: NET
Price: $152.97
Market cap: $52 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: LRCX
Price: $703.66
Market cap: $101 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: HUBS
Price: $740
Market cap: $37 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: AZPN
Price: $147
Market cap: $10 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: JD
Price: $80.07
Market cap: $124 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: YNDX
Price: $66.32
Market cap: $24 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: LMND
Price: $46.50
Market cap: $3 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: UPST
Price: $180.61
Market cap: $16 billion
Theme: AI
Markets Insider
Ticker: ISRG
Price: $343.87
Market cap: $122 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: RBOT
Price: $10
Market cap: $1 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: ILMN
Price: $375.05
Market cap: $59 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: AZTA
Price: $104.55
Market cap: $8 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: EXAS
Price: $83.35
Market cap: $15 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: VCYT
Price: $39.42
Market cap: $3 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: CRSP
Price: $75.46
Market cap: $6 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: EDIT
Price: $30.53
Market cap: $2 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: NTLA
Price: $112.10
Market cap: $9 billion
Theme: Health tech
Markets Insider
Ticker: CGNX
Price: $75.76
Market cap: $14 billion
Theme: Robotics
Markets Insider
Ticker: NVDA
Price: $308
Market cap: $796 billion
Theme: Robotics
Markets Insider
Ticker: KYCCF
Price: ¥72,370 ($636)
Market cap: $156 billion
Theme: Robotics
Markets Insider
Ticker: IRBT
Price: $71.26
Market cap: $2 billion
Theme: Robotics
Markets Insider
Ticker: DAIUF
Price: ¥9,580 ($84)
Market cap: $11 billion
Theme: Robotics
Markets Insider
Ticker: GXO
Price: $88.68
Market cap: $10 billion
Theme: Robotics
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