Tag: Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (LIT)

General Motors Announcement Changes Everything

Posted on by Matt Thalman

We all know Tesla (TSLA) is a run-away train, but what if I told you General Motors (GM) could soon be not only chasing down Elon Musk but maybe passing him?

OK, all of the Tesla fanatics need to take a deep breath and calm down. The thinking that another “car” company could pass Tesla is not a negative comment against Tesla; it’s the reality that we are now living in a world where electric and other alternative energy vehicles are not “pipe” dreams but reality.

The late January announcement from General Motors that they will no longer sell internal combustion engine vehicles in the United States by 2035 is the writing on the wall that gasoline is ending and EV’s will dominate the road. In 2020 Tesla delivered 499,550 vehicles, which shows that we have demand for EVs even now. Perhaps not like the demand that GM still has for gasoline-powered vehicles. GM sold 7.7 million in 2019, down from the 8.3 million it had sold in 2018 and way off its high of just over 10 million in 2016. These are worldwide sales figures, but regardless GM sold 2.5 million vehicles in the US in 2020.

What’s the point of these figures? Continue reading "General Motors Announcement Changes Everything" →

Could Lithium Become The Best Performing Commodity

Posted on by Matt Thalman

Most investors know of the little car company called Tesla (TSLA) and how it is leading the industry in electric vehicles (EV’s). But what some may not know is that every single major car manufacturer around the world is attempting to compete with Tesla and produce EV’s themselves.

This increase in electric vehicle availability and production in the future is great for reducing carbon emissions caused by standard gas combustion engines. Furthermore, if the EV revolution takes hold like most believe it will, the impact on the oil markets will certainly be felt, but lower demand for one commodity will likely mean higher demand for another.

Lithium is a key component in the namesake battery, ‘lithium-ion-battery,’ which by the way, is currently the main battery used for high powered electronics and EV’s. While it's evident that small hand-held electronics (smartphones, tablets, laptops) continue to grow in popularity worldwide, those devices don’t require the same amount of lithium as what some predict the electric vehicle market will consume in just a few years.

In 2018 EV sales rose 81% over sales figures in 2017, this was primarily due to Tesla’s Model 3 hitting 139,000 units sold. The Model 3 had such a significant impact on the market due to its low cost, but still, highly fashionable appearance and other high-tech features and amenities that other lower-priced EV’s like the Toyota Prius and Nissan Leaf don’t offer.
The Model 3’s success shows that if you offer higher-end features and options in EV’s that consumers want, they will buy them. We recently saw Ford using a model of its Electric F 150 truck pull a 1.25-million-pound train. Tesla has shown models of its electric pickup truck, not to mention its Semi-truck electric vehicle.

With rapidly increasing numbers of EV’s being sold and now more options in terms of types of EV’s soon to hit the market, it's hard to see how the demand for lithium doesn’t increase in the coming years. Which is why now may be the best time to buy up some lithium-based Exchange Traded Funds and sit on them while other investors push the prices higher once they realize they missed the boat.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few lithium-based ETFs you can buy today. Continue reading "Could Lithium Become The Best Performing Commodity" →

How To Own Tesla While Reducing Your Overall Risk

Posted on by Matt Thalman

Shares of electric car maker Tesla Inc. (TSLA) are down nearly 50% since December of 2018. That is quite a fall and one that attracts the attention of investors looking to buy a stock after it has shed a large amount of its value in the hopes that the stock price will rebound in the future.

We have seen Tesla’s stock crash before and bounce back even higher. This gives hopes that the company can turn things around and the stock will once again see the $300 handle. Regardless though of what the stock has done in the past, anyone considering investing in Tesla today should be cautious and try to limit their risk as much as possible.

One way of doing this is by simply buying an Exchange Traded Fund, which has a position in Tesla. That way if the stock continues to crash and eventually burns, your investment doesn’t take as much of a hit as if it would if you directly purchase shares of Tesla. On the flip side, if Elon Musk stabilizes the company and investors begin to believe his story, causing Tesla to climb higher, you reap the rewards, and the ETF will also move higher. While the move higher in an ETF may not be as substantial, it would still increase in value if it held a large portion of the auto-maker.

With that in mind, let us take a look at a few different ETFs that hold varying sizes of Tesla in their portfolio’s.

The first ETF is the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), which has Tesla as its top holding. Tesla represents 9.96% of the fund’s assets. The fund has 38 different positions, which are companies that focus on disruptive and innovative firms. Despite Tesla’s poor recent performance, the fund is still up 11.64% and down just a half of a percent over the last 12 months. ARKK would see a massive move upwards if Tesla regained the value it has lost, but due to its exposure to the electric car company, if Tesla does continue to decline, ARKK will certainly take a substantial hit. Continue reading "How To Own Tesla While Reducing Your Overall Risk" →

2017's Best Performing Non-Leveraged ETFs

Posted on by Matt Thalman

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


The stock market had an amazing year in 2017, with the S&P 500 increasing more than 19.9%, but some Exchange Traded Funds performed substantially better. Most investors wouldn’t expect a large fund to outperform the S&P 500, unless they were using leverage, taking on outsized risk through trading in volatility, or investing entirely in international/developing markets.

But, surprisingly there were a few ETF’s that not only outperformed the S&P 500 but crushed it while just being mildly risky. Below is a list of a few of them and then an explanation as to why they performed well and whether or not their hot streak can continue in 2018.

Best Performing ETFs of 2017

While this list was intended to help investors find ETF’s which offered lower risk than one would find with leveraged ETF’s, the best performer still had a little more risk than most investors should be comfortable with. The outsized risk with ARK WEB x.0 ETF (ARKW) is that its largest holding is in the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which makes up 6.71% of the fund. The next largest is Amazon.com (AMZN) making up 6.08% of the fund. Twitter (TWTR), Athenahealth (ATHN), 2U (TWOU), Tesla (TSLA), Netflix (:NFLX), NVIDIA (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOG)(GOOGL), and JD.com (JD) round out the fund top ten holdings. GBTC’s performance in 2017 was primarily the reason ARKW crushed the overall market, but moving forward investors shouldn’t bet on that continuing to happen.

Ever since the Bitcoin futures began trading on the CBOE and CME, the price of Bitcoin has stabilized. If you are considering buying ARKW, just know that you are taking on more risk than a typical ETF due to its exposure to Bitcoin, but maybe that is why you want to own ARKW. Personally, though if I were thinking about investing in Bitcoin, I would just invest directly into the crypto-currency, not muddy the waters with GBTC due to its pricing. Continue reading "2017's Best Performing Non-Leveraged ETFs" →

Political Policy Changes Redefining One Industry and Creating Massive Opportunity

Posted on by Matt Thalman

Matt Thalman - INO.com Contributor - ETFs


This summer investors have witnessed firsthand how political policy changes can affect commodity and equity prices. In July both France and the United Kingdom announced it would ban the sale of diesel and gasoline powered cars by the year 2040. Other countries like Norway and India have set goals of even earlier dates to no longer have oil based vehicles sold by 2025 and 2030.
India had even taken it one step further and announced that not only will gasoline vehicles not be sold after 2030, but all gasoline vehicles will need to be replaced with electric and battery powered vehicles by that year.

The Netherlands wants to switch to electric vehicles by 2025 while Germany intends to make the change by 2030, but neither has set these plans in written law. But, the most notable announcement comes from China, a country that has over 300 million registered vehicles. Chinese authorities have not yet set a deadline for the end of sales of internal-combustion vehicles, but they have made it clear that they are working on a timetable.

While the U.S. and some of the other leading countries around the world have yet to come out and formally announce a date of when internal combustion engines will no longer be allowed, many believe there will come a day that all first world countries have such a ban.

So from an investing perspective, cashing in on this opportunity is simply just buying investments today and waiting. Continue reading "Political Policy Changes Redefining One Industry and Creating Massive Opportunity" →