Investment in the metaverse and metaverse technology has grown significantly over the past year, with tech giants like Meta (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT) leading the charge. According to ProShares Advisors Global Investment Strategist Simeon Hyman, metaverse presents an investment opportunity for individuals and institutions alike.
“Today you have an immersive but not quite interconnected metaverse,” Hyman told Yahoo Finance Live. “There’s already a half [a trillion] dollars being made in the metaverse. That’s likely to double even in the context of just the near term [with] social media, interactive gaming, and live music, before we even get to the interconnected piece on the other side.”
Hyman joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the outlook for stocks as the Fed raises interest rates and investing in the metaverse. ProShares recently launched its metaverse ETF (VERS) designed to give investment access to companies shaping the digital frontier.
The VERS (pronounced “verse”) ETF tracks Solactive’s Metaverse Theme Index, which includes 40 companies across a broad range of industries — from data processors and software to social media and gaming — and utilizes algorithms to determine metaverse investment opportunity as it evolves. A few of the companies tracked include Apple (AAPL), NVIDIA (NVDA), Roblox (RBLX), Microsoft, Meta, Snap Inc. (SNAP), and Unity (U).
“It’s really interesting, when you look at the basket of companies,” Hyman said. “It’s almost like a timeline of innovation over the years, because companies like Microsoft are there, but so is NVIDIA, and of course Meta, but more recent companies like Roblox and even more recently than that, a company like Unity. So this is an evolving opportunity.”
ProShares joins the likes of Roundhill Investments and their Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (METV) in allowing investors to participate in the financial performance of companies making the push into metaverse.
Metaverse and rising interest rates
And with the Federal Reserve raising near-term interest rates by 25 basis points, with plans to pump the brakes further if surging inflation is not quelled, uncertainty remains in regard to metaverse investment as investors begin to favor value over growth stocks.
However, Hyman believes that it is important for portfolios to maintain some level of exposure in the burgeoning tech sector to serve as a “bulwark against inflation and rising rates.” In this sense, he said that funds like ProShares’ metaverse ETF are forward-looking, although the companies included are already currently generating revenue within metaverse.
“And, you know, what we’ve found over the last decade or so, is that some of these transformational thematic ideas can be very, very important parts of that growth piece of your equity portfolio,” he said.
Thomas Hum is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @thomashumTV
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