iShares North American Tech-Software ETF (IGV-A)

ETF recommendation? There are a number of them out there. The ones he uses add diversification and are used primarily as a short term trading vehicle for him. He mostly uses SOXX, IGV and FDN.

A great name. He likes their migration to a subscription basis. It has good pricing power and he personally uses their products all the time. They are the defacto standard. A little rich at today's value though. He would also consider the ETF IGV-A to help diversify some of the risk in the space.

July 31-Nov.8 is seasonality. It's outperformed the market by 4.2% in this period. It's trending higher and consistently. Software stocks are the new defensive stocks because they're adopting the subscription model, like Microsoft.

A tech ETF for an RRSP? There are three. SOXX for semi-conductors, the ammunition which drives tech around the world. IGV is a great way to get diversification in software. FDN is the internet index is extremely liquid and massive. These ETFs cover the three pillars that drive tech today. He uses these ETFs to offset volatility. When an ETF approach 5-7% of his price target, he sells a third off. Holding single stocks isn't as nimble. For example, he sold a lot of these ETFs in early-spring, then bought them back in the May swoon.

Video game companies? When video game companies found the advantage to after sales revenues, he got interested. Gaming is a growth industry now. Now that membership revenues have been introduced, it has made earnings less predictable. This is a structural change in the industry, which will create some investor anxiety. He would prefer IGV -A as an ETF basket of gaming companies for now.

An older ETF. It’s software, high growth, high margin business. Tremendous run this year up 25-30% YTD. Not wise after this move to be going in so specifically. If you want tech in the US you should look at ETF not so specific to software, an equally weighted tech ETF would be an interesting thing to look at such as RYT that Invesco has in the US. He tends to avoid IGV. Nothing wrong with this, but it’s a bit late. Not enough unknowns in these companies that will cause them to outperform going forward. You might want to buy a stock specifically rather than a group of others stocks that are pretty mature companies.