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Vinyl sales are up, the kids are using flip phones, brands are leaning into IRL marketing — all things analog are making a comeback.
The ETF world is no exception: Wedbush recently filed a preliminary prospectus for an Analog Economy ETF, which will track an index of about 50 companies “whose business models depend on human labor, physical assets and tangible output.” With ever more money piling into the AI trade (and increasingly loud warnings that it could kill us all), this fund attempts to remind investors that the real world still exists, and there’s still money to be made from it. But the question is whether the fund’s holdings will be enough to differentiate it.
“It’s a mix of the industrials and materials sectors, and there are plenty of ETFs out there that can give you exposure to those sectors,” said Loren Fox, research director at Fuse Research Network. “If you really want one ETF that combines industrials and materials in one ticker, then that’s a little more distinctive … For some investors and financial advisors, one of the questions will be: ‘Do I really want all of these sectors in one ETF?’ Because they’re not necessarily driven by all the same trends.”
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Concrete, Not Compute
Wedbush’s fund will focus on companies in industries including construction and materials, machinery, vehicle and equipment manufacturing, distribution and environmental and commercial services, per the prospectus. It will exclude companies whose primary business is connected to AI, semiconductors, data centers or power generation.
Its closest analogs (sorry, not sorry) are funds that track the HALO index (heavy asset, low obsolescence), of which there are at least two:
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The Roundhill HALO ETF (LOHA) was launched in May and has about $50 million under management, per ETF.com.
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The Tuttle Capital Heavy Assets Low Obsolescence ETF (HALX) also launched in May and represents about $2.5 million. Both funds have climbed about 1.5% since inception.
Hedge Your Bots: HALO funds or Wedbush’s Analog Economy ETF may need to wait for an AI rout to see some real action, said Athanasios Psarofagis, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “I like it as a hedge towards all this AI stuff,” he said. “At some point we’re going to get waxed with some massive selloff, and I think people are going to reassess a little bit.”
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