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>>> ETFs to Gain From Lifestyle Changes Amid Coronavirus Crisis


Zacks

Sweta Jaiswal, FRM

May 4, 2020


https://finance.yahoo.com/news/etfs-gain-lifestyle-changes-amid-205008557.html


The coronavirus outbreak has infected more than 3.5 million globally, with above 247,000 casualties, per Johns Hopkins University data. The United States alone has recorded a death toll of more than 67,000. The outbreak has caused an unprecedented collapse of economic activities as governments are forced to shut down commerce and implement social distancing measures in an effort to contain the spread of the virus.

The pandemic has resulted in some changes in the lifestyle and preferences of Americans. Most of the surveys have found that people are more interested in opting for online shopping rather than visiting a brick-and-mortar store for their purchases of essential food items and supplies. Even as the U.S. economy starts to reopen in phases and social distancing restrictions are being eased, people will try to minimize the human-to-human contacts. Against this backdrop, let’s look at some ETF areas that can gain from the lifestyle changes amid the crisis:

Work-From-Home Trend

In the current scenario, people have to maintain social distancing and work remotely. Resultantly, cloud computing is emerging as a key technology in the fight against coronavirus. Cloud computing and storage have empowered video conferencing, gaming, e-commerce shopping, remote project collaboration, online classes, editing, etc. It is supporting organizations in remotely processing a lot of information, developing and running key applications and services, and also helping employees across the world collaborate while working. Investors can look at the following ETFs that can gain from the trend -- First Trust Cloud Computing ETF SKYY and Global X Cloud Computing ETF CLOU (read: ETFs to Gain on Cloud Computing Growth Amid Coronavirus Crisis).

Online Shopping Trend

In order to avoid human-to-human contact, people are staying indoors and shopping online for all essentials, especially food items. In fact, non-store retail sales in March increased 3.1% sequentially and 9.7% year over year. Going by Signifyd’s Ecommerce Pulse data, there has been a 46% surge in overall e-commerce expenditures since late February. According to a Total Retail article, e-commerce sales are expected to grow more than 20% this year as there is an increasing number of first-time online shoppers. Against this backdrop, let’s look at some ETFs that can benefit from the new shopping trend like Amplify Online Retail ETF IBUY, ProShares Long Online/Short Stores ETF CLIX and ProShares Online Retail ETF ONLN (read: What's in Store for Work-From-Home ETF & Stock Earnings?).

Rising Digital Payments

In line with the rising online shopping trend, customers are resorting to digital payments to clear their bills, while merchants and utility providers are advocating the same. Per Statista, total transaction value in the Digital Payments segment should see a 15.3% year-over-year growth rate in 2020 on a 5.4% rise in users. In view of this, investors can tap ETFs like ETFMG Prime Mobile Payments ETF IPAY, Tortoise Digital Payments Infrastructure ETF TPAY and Global X FinTech ETF FINX.

Soaring Video Games Sales

Lockdown measures have resulted in a spike in video game sales to the highest level in March over a decade. Interestingly, according to Verizon, overall video-game Internet traffic has risen 75% since stay-at-home orders were imposed in the United States, per The Economist Group report. A NPD Group report, which keeps a track of physical retail sales and a subset of digital downloads in the United States, states that all game-related purchases, including software, hardware and accessories, totaled $1.6 billion (up 35% year over year) in March. The video games sales growth is the highest since March 2008, when sales had risen to $1.8 billion, per NDP Group. Against this backdrop, investors can bet on the ETFs like VanEck Vectors Video Gaming and eSports ETF ESPO and Global X Video Games & Esports ETF HERO (read: Stay-at-Home Trend Boosts Video Games Sales: ETFs to Gain).

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