The Problem:
There aren’t many pure-play investments for the upcoming mobile payments revolution, but it is going to be an enormous opportunity. Mobile payments are growing exponentially. However, the major players in the space are non-public start-ups or have enormous companies attached. Google wallet likely won’t overtake adwords anytime soon. Paypal is still subject to the good and the bad of the online auction business (it’s owned by Ebay). Visa is, well, the Visa that’s been in your wallet for years.
I play the revolution via NXP Semiconductor. NXP makes the chips that make the mobile payments possible. I would, however, like a little diversification.
The Business
A mobile payments ETF. If you want to be all last century about it, you could go with a mobile payments mutual fund.
Doableness
Easy as pie if you were iShares. Exceedingly difficult if you aren’t in the investment business. Somewhere in between if you are a small to mid sized investment shop.
My Thoughts
The proliferation of ETF’s over the last ten years has been astounding. Despite the growth, you could have an entire blog of ETF ideas. They are nearly infinite. I have a number of other ETF ideas, but I won’t let them hijack this blog. This will be my only one.
Wait, before I go… a .5x S&P ETF, an online content delivery etf, and …