From touching the ground to exceeding the sky. The fever unleashed by artificial intelligence has revived technology companies on the stock market, especially the Nasdaq index, which has already accumulated a jump of more than 33% in the year after suffering its biggest bump in 2022 since the 2008 financial crisis. at companies like Nvidia have helped drive the industry as a whole. Also the thematic funds, which take advantage of this ‘boom’ with juicy returns.
In the case of Spain, it is the manager of the Mutua Madrileña group, Mutuactivos, which starts from pole position after getting its vehicle Mutuafondo Tecnológico Fi Class A to record a race of more than 42% in profits this year. The good performance experienced by values such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet or Amazon, whose exposure ranges between 3.6% and 10.4%, explains the ‘rally’ experienced. “After a 2022 of important corrections, we did not hesitate to concentrate the portfolio on large companies, whose punishment seemed excessive to us,” says Jaime de Leon Calleja, equity manager at Mutuactivos.
Also noteworthy on the list are Gescooperativo’s Rural Technological Renta Variable fund, which is on the heels of the previous one in terms of profitability (+41.2%), as well as Bankinter USA Nasdaq 100 (37.2%) or Myinvestor Nasdaq 100 ( +37.1%) from AndBank Wealth Management. They all have in common their commitment to one or more of the ‘magnificent seven’ of the Nasdaq, among which are included, in addition to those mentioned, Google, Meta and Tesla.
If the rebound experienced by the Nasdaq since the start of the year is taken as a reference, these are the only technological funds ‘made in Spain’ that have managed to beat the index to date, according to data from ‘Bloomberg’. leaving Bankinter Tecnología just below, with a revaluation of 32.7%. It so happens that Bankinter has been the third manager that has received the most money inflows until August 2, with a positive balance of almost 30,000 million, according to data from Vdos.
However, the thematic vehicles of CaixaBank and BBVA are the ones that attract the most investment in this period with a volume of 41,000 million and 56,000 million, respectively. In the case of the manager of the first bank, these come from CaixaBank Comunicación Mundial (+33.6% return), while the manager of the bank chaired by Carlos Torres channels them through BBVA Bolsa Tecnología y Telecommunications. In the background are Mutuactivos (7,826 million) and Andbank (5,210 million), while the manager of the Caja Rural group suffers outflows worth 7,000 million.
To put these figures in context, fixed-income funds, which are experiencing a ‘boom’ in the heat of the high demand registered for Treasury Bills, do not reach 15,000 million in terms of net deposits at the end of July. In fact, it is the only category together with money (2,217 million) and target profitability (5,680 million) that closes the seventh month of the year with a balance of positive flows.
Given the prospect that investor interest will continue, at least in the short term, analysts such as Rolando Grandi, CFA, manager of international equity funds at La Financière de l’Echiquier (LFDE), point out that the market is in an incipient bull market for technology stocks, supported by a cocktail made up of a “powerful” combination of low valuations, the arrival of artificial intelligence and the end of the cycle of increases by the Federal Reserve.
“While it’s not unthinkable that the rise of AI could cause a bubble in the tech sector – we know that investor psychology can go from extreme pessimism to extreme enthusiasm – we believe that the latest advances in AI are the continuation of a well-known trend.” established that began a decade ago”, he specifies to point out that they trust the fundamentals of the sector.
