Amplify Emerging Markets FinTech ETF's Average People Pillar and Process Pillar ratings result in a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy earns an Average Process Pillar rating.  High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And high volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a higher standard deviation of returns. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm a Below Average Parent Pillar rating, and this rating is inherited from vehicles belonging to the same branding entity and is indirectly assigned by an analyst.

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Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. Amplify Emerging Markets FinTech ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. The main driver of the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The firm's five-year retention rate of 93% also supports the rating. Lastly, the process is limited by the fund's unremarkable long-term risk-adjusted performance. This can be seen in its five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the process has struggled over that period.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks investment results that generally correspond (before fees and expenses) to the price and yield of the EQM Emerging Markets Fintech Index (the "index").  The index seeks to measure the performance of equity securities (common stock and depositary receipts) issued by emerging market and frontier market companies that derive at least 50% of their revenue from Fintech. The fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (including investment borrowings) in the securities that comprise the index. It is non-diversified. 

 The portfolio is overweight in technology and financial services relative to the category average by 21.5 and 7.8 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are consumer defensive and basic materials, underweight the average by 7.1 and 6.1 percentage points of assets, respectively. The strategy owns 43 securities and is relatively concentrated. In particular, 34.6% of the fund’s assets are housed within the top 10 holdings, compared with the typical peer's 25.3%. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 57% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Average

Process

Amplify’s team is valuable but does not stand out as one of the industry's best, warranting an Average People Pillar rating. There are three managers listed on the fund: Anand Desai, Ernesto Tong, Dustin Lewellyn. The team is well equipped, with an average of 11 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 28 strategies, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Bronze asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. The longest-tenured manager of the fund also manages a different product rated by an analyst. Their analyst-assigned People Pillar rating is combined here with the People scores (algorithmic or analyst-assigned) for the fund’s other managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

People

While differentiated from much of the competition, Amplify ETFs' concentrated lineup of largely thematic exchange-traded funds harbors considerable risk. It earns a Below Average Parent Rating.

Amplify targets niches not previously explored by larger ETF firms. This leads to product launches in relatively narrow parts of the market like cannabis, online retail, and battery technology. A recent acquisition of 12 mostly thematic ETFs from ETF Managers Group only enhances this focus. Products like these tend to be extremely concentrated and volatile, inviting significant risks to their investors, not the least of which are ill-timed purchases and sales. Because of these risks, product success is unpredictable and leads to more closures than there are among traditional strategies. Since its 2016 founding, Amplify has merged or liquidated several ETFs that failed to gain traction or produced poor results.

Five subadvisors are responsible for the day-to-day management of Amplify's 29 ETFs. The firm regularly reviews subadvisor activity and performance and risk data but does not have a dedicated risk management team. Overall, its subadvisory relationships seem to emphasize product development and distribution rather than long-term, proven investment merit.

Amplify ETFs does what it sets out to do—offer investors differentiated ETF strategies—and leadership comes with considerable ETF experience. The firm's ETFs are not cheap but neither are they particularly pricey. Many levy category-competitive fees. Few of Amplify's ETFs should be considered core holdings, but they can serve a purpose for investors seeking specific exposures so long as shareholders understand the risks embedded.

Below Average

Parent

Amplify Emerging Markets FinTech ETF

EMFQ tracks an equally weighted index of financial technology companies in emerging and frontier economies.

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