New ETF to give access to Asian tech giants

The new ETF, Asia Technology Tigers ETF or ASIA, will track the returns of an index comprised of the largest 50 companies by market capitalisation in the technology and retail industries that have their main area of business in the Asian region.

Some of the companies ASIA invests in already include Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Samsung. BetaShares chief executive Alex Vynokur said this is just the beginning.

“Asia is quickly surpassing the west in terms of online activity and technological advancements. Investors may well be surprised that four of the largest 10 listed technology companies globally are based in Asia,” he said.

Mr Vynokur said Aussie investors currently looking at FAANG titans in the US should also look closer to home.

“Australian investors are likely more familiar with US tech titans such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google. But if they look a bit closer to home, they’ll uncover a number of Asian businesses that are dominating in this part of the world,” he said.

There were several companies in Asia that would provide good returns but often the difficulty of accessing the market excluded investors, Mr Vynokur said.

“Australians have a natural home bias when it comes to investing and given the difficulty and cost of investing directly in Asian sharemarkets, may often miss out on compelling investment opportunities in the region,” he said.

The top holdings of ASIA were countries based in Taiwan, China and Korea, and Mr Vynokur said it would continue to offer easy access to more countries in the region.

“ASIA allows investors to obtain access to a currently relatively reasonably-priced, rapidly growing sector in a rapidly growing part of the world as easily as buying any share on the ASX,” he said.

Eliot Hastie

Eliot Hastie is a journalist at Momentum Media, writing primarily for its wealth and financial services platforms. 

Eliot joined the team in 2018 having previously written on Real Estate Business with Momentum Media as well.

Eliot graduated from the University of Westminster, UK with a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism).

You can email him on: [email protected]