MidtownGuy wrote: ** Long post. Mostly for new investors and/or people new to ETFs. **
1. What is ARK and Why the Hype? ARK is an American asset-management company founded in 2014 that has had explosive success in its short time in business. Cathie Wood, who has become a superstar in the investment community, is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of ARK.
ARK is widely described as “the hottest fund manager on Wall Street”. Much of their success has been a result of taking very large positions in companies that others felt overvalued (specifically Tesla, Roku, Square, Shopify, and Netflix), and in creating funds for “thematic” sectors, such as 3D Printing, Fintech, and Robotics
ARK offers 7 ETFs, comprised of 5 actively traded funds, and 2 index funds.
2. ARK’s Connection to Pyrogenesis – The ARK PRNT ETF PYR was recently included in ARK’s 3D Printing ETF (symbol PRNT): View that fund here:
[url= https://ark-funds.com/3d-printing-etf] https://ark-funds.com/3d-printing-etf[/url]
For those that don’t know, PYR has made advances in creating superior quality metal powders for use in additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing.
PYR is one of the 54 companies and one liquidity fund (Morgan Stanley GOVT INSTL 8035) currently in the PRNT ETF. Read the list here:
https://ark-funds.com/wp-content/fundsiteliterature/holdings/THE_3D_PRINTING_ETF_PRNT_HOLDINGS.pdf 3. When Did PYR Get Added to ARK PRNT ETF? ARK started buying PYR on January 15, 2021, adding the company to its “3D Printing ETF” (symbol PRNT) on a weighting in PRNT ETF of 0.12% of the overall fund (based on the market value of shares purchased, not number of shares purchased. More on that further below.):
https://cdn-ceo-ca.s3.amazonaws.com/1g26l79-PRNT-position-open.jpg ARK took an initial position in PYR of 85,700 shares:
https://cdn-ceo-ca.s3.amazonaws.com/1g28j5o-ARK-PYR-chart.png 4. ARK PRNT ETF Directly Mimics an Underlying Benchmark Index ARK PRNT bought PYR because Solactive added PYR to their benchmark index.
What does that mean?
As an “index fund”, ARK PRNT is not actively managed with trades in and out all day every day.
Instead, the ARK 3D Printing ETF directly mimics an underlying benchmark index, in regards to which companies are included in the ETF and how much ownership of each company’s shares they should buy.
This benchmark index – called the “Total 3D Printing Index” – was created and managed by international index maker called Solactive. View that here:
https://www.solactive.com/Indices/?index=DE000SLA1A36 ARK purchases any company added to that index for its PRNT ETF. It was Solactive who added PYR to the index, causing ARK to follow suit and add it to their index’d ETF named PRNT.
ARK then follows along based on the Solactive index, using what’s called a replication strategy:
“The Fund, using an indexing investment approach, attempts to approximate, before fees and expenses, the investment performance of the Index by investing in a portfolio of securities that generally replicates the Index. A replication strategy is an indexing strategy that involves investing in the securities of the Index in approximately the same proportions as in the Index.” Read that quote here on page 67 of the ETF prospectus:
https://etfs.ark-funds.com/hubfs/1_Download_Files_ETF_Website/Prospectuses/ARK_Active_ETFs_Prospectus.pdf 5. Are There Other 3D Printing Funds that Contain PYR? No, not yet.
Normally, any company would be able to make use of the underlying Solactive benchmark index to create an ETF or mutual fund, but so far, only ARK has done so. (Though ARK may have been the one who asked Solactive to make this index in the first place; this is not clear.)
Funds can also create ETFs or funds on their own without mimicking an existing index, if they wanted to create an actively managed fund, for instance. So far, this has also not yet occurred, and ARK is still the only 3D printing fund of any kind.
Note: PYR could be added to any other type of fund and of course is not limited just to 3D printing funds. To date, that has not yet occurred.
6. Why Is PYR Partner HPQ Not Part of the ARK ETF as Well? HPQ is not in the ARK ETF because HPQ is not currently* part of the underlying Solactive benchmark index.
*Note: Sometimes a company not on the underlying index may appear on the ETF, and the ETF prospectus indicates they have discretion to that end:
“…there also may be instances in which the Adviser may choose to… purchase securities not in the Index that the Adviser believes are appropriate to substitute for certain securities in the Index”. However, this should be considered rare.
You can view the official prospectus for the PRNT ETF and read that quote above on page 49, in here:
https://etfs.ark-funds.com/hubfs/1_Download_Files_ETF_Website/Prospectuses/ARK_Active_ETFs_Prospectus.pdf Note 2: you can keep track of what companies are in the underlying benchmark index at the following link, then looking under the "index composition" tab to see the companies:
https://www.solactive.com/Indices/?index=DE000SLA1A36 7. How Does ARK Decide to Buy More PYR? As an index fund, the ARK ETF is not actively managed through day-to-day trades, but is a passive fund that directly mimics the suggested weighting of the underlying benchmark index. However, daily purchase are made to maintain growth of the fund.
Purchases of shares in companies like PYR that are held within the ETF are made in two situations:
1/ when an initial position in a company is being established
2/ daily, as new money flows into the fund from investors.
7.1/ Buying for the initial position: As noted above, the initial position taken in PYR was on Jan 15, for 85,700 shares. This has since grown to 216,600 shares as of end of day Wed Feb 10.
7.2/ Buying for daily inflows, based on investor buying: The daily buying of PYR into the ETF has nothing to do with Cathie Wood and ARK’s sentiments about PYR, nor about liking or disliking any company in the fund.
The daily buying is based almost entirely on “inflow” – the amount of new money invested into the ETF by those who purchase or already own the ETF. The more it sells, the more money goes to ARK, and then that money is used by ARK each day to purchase more stocks from the basket of stocks within the ETF.
It’s important to note that if the “inflow” is negative (because more people sell the ETF than buy it on any day), shares in the companies within the ETF
may be reduced / sold. This is not cause for alarm, this is just how ETFs stay balanced.
8. How is the Amount of Daily Stock Purchase in PYR Decided? The purchases are based on “weighting”. Weighting is an assigned % to each company held by the ETF.
This means that the value of each company’s shares in the fund comprise that % of the fund.
For instance, if a company in the fund is given a weighting of 10%, it means that if the fund has $100Million in value on any given day, shares would be held in that company of $10Million. If the fund increases to $200Million the next day, more shares in that company within the ETF would be bought to increase the value of that company weighted at 10% to $20Million, to maintain the 10% weighting. And so on.
Weighting can change, and is determined based on:
1/ when an initial position in a company is being established
2/ during the regularly scheduled rebalancing of the fund
3/ in exceptional circumstances, to compensate for other companies say when one company in the fund is struggling/delisted/bought out etc, and other company's weightings are changed to compensate
4/ movement within (but beneath the cap) of the defined sub-group of the fund.
8.1/ Weighting From Initial Position PYR was weighted at 012% when the initial index was created by Solactive, and when the initial position was taken by ARK. This means, at any time, the total amount of money in the ETF will be invested in PYR shares, at an amount equal to approximately 0.12% of the overall fund dollar value.
However, this weighting % can be noticed as being more or less than 0.12% on any given day if PYR’s stock price rises or falls quickly and the value of the PYR stocks held by ARK PRNT changes. Or, when PYR is given more reign within the sub-sector of the fund. More on that further below.
8.2/ Weighting Change from Rebalancing of the Fund All funds do a “rebalance” – essentially a review and reconsideration of the weighting value of each company included in the fund vs. other companies in the fund -- a scheduled intervals.
ARK PRNT has designated quarterly rebalances, meaning 4 times per year. That is shown at the following link, on the left side of the page, scroll down to locate “Rebalance Quarterly”:
https://ark-funds.com/3d-printing-etf During that quarterly rebalance, PYR’s current base position weighting of 012% may be increased, decreased, or kept the same. Much of that may depend on where the sub-sector of the fund within which PYR resides is rebalanced. Currently it is at 2% of the fund. More on that further below.
8.3/ Weighting Change in Exceptional Circumstances to Compensate for Other Companies Sometimes companies in the fund can struggle, are delisted, are bought out etc., so the fund reserves the right to adjust other company's weightings to compensate:
“there also may be instances in which the Adviser may choose to underweight or overweight a security in the Index…” You can read about that here in the PRNT ETF prospectus:
https://etfs.ark-funds.com/hubfs/1_Download_Files_ETF_Website/Prospectuses/ARK_Active_ETFs_Prospectus.pdf 8.4/ Weighting Change Based on Movement Within the Fund Sub-Sector The ARK PRNT ETF divides the 55 companies in the fund into five categories or sub-sectors. You can view those categories in the fund here, on page 2, left side:
https://etfs.ark-funds.com/hubfs/1_Download_Files_ETF_Website/Fact_Sheets/PRNT_Factsheet.pdf Each of these five sub-sectors has been given a weighting for their sector. Currently they are:
3D Printing Hardware 50.0%
Computer aided design (“CAD”) & 3D Printing Simulation Services 30.0%
3D Printing Centers 13.0%
Scanning and Measurement 5.0%
3D Printing Materials 2.0%
PYR falls into the "
3D Printing Materials" sub-sector , which has been assigned a current *2% weighting.
By my count, 14 of the fund's 55 companies appear to be part of that sub sector. (See latest list at the bottom of this post. PYR is the second largest holding of that group.)
As a result, those 14 companies combined can only be valued at 2% of the total PRNT ETF. One company alone in that group has a weighting of 0.73%, leaving not much room for the rest.
That said, because the sub-group has a current cap of 2% of the overall fund, there does appear there's an opportunity for flex within that group. PYR may therefore see more weighting gain within the 2% group cap. The group is already over-weighted by my math of the overall fund, but that's not uncommon, as funds can ride a hot stock more than they admit.
On average though, while we might see PYR jump to as much as 0.40 of the overall fund, I wouldn't expect a serious re-weighting of PYR until the next quarterly rebalancing, simply because of that 2% sub-sector cap.
Here’s the list of companies in the “printing materials” sub-group of the ARK PRNT fund, with their % holding in the fund, in order of largest to smallest, as of Wednesday Feb 10:
Ranking of All Current Companies in the "Printing Materials" Sub-Setor of the ARK PRNT ETF OC OERLIKON CORP AG-REG
475,176 shares, $5,238,233.66
0.73% of ETF
PYROGENESIS CANADA INC
216,600 shares, $1,546,473.02
0.22% of ETF
SGL CARBON SE
115,640 shares, $899,758.58
0.13% of ETF
3M CO
3,898 shares, $705,849.84
0.10% of ETF
HEXCEL CORP
13,668 shares, $688,593.84
0.10% of ETF
ALLEGHENY TECHNOLOGIES INC
36,439 shares, $677,765.40
0.10% of ETF
EVONIK INDUSTRIES
20,358 shares, $675,787.30
0.09% of ETF
SANDVIK AB
25,574 shares, $662,053.36
0.09% of ETF
TORAY INDUSTRIES INC
96,708 shares, $660,647.76
0.09% of ETF
KONINKLIJKE DSM NV
3,720 shares, 654,399.36
0.09% of ETF
CARPENTER TECHNOLOGY
18,745 shares, $647,639.75
0.09% of ETF
EASTMAN CHEMICAL CO
6,139 shares, $645,208.90
0.09% of ETF
ARKEMA
5,574 shares, $604,606.60
0.08% of ETF
DUPONT DE NEMOURS INC
8,018 shares, $563,825.76
0.08% of ETF