Amplify Video Game Tech ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The strategy charges fees in line with its similarly distributed peers, priced within the middle quintile.  

 The strategy's effective investment philosophy supports an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an overweight in liquidity exposure and quality exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And a high quality exposure is rooted in holding stocks with low financial leverage and strong returns on equity. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. 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.

Analyst Rating

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ANSYS

Take-Two Interactive Software

Playtika Holding

Electronic Arts

Roblox

Corsair Gaming

Unity Software

GameStop

Alphabet

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. Amplify Video Game Tech ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. The main contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, like 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 underpins the rating. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 42%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. The parent's modest success ratio suggests that the firm could do better across its fund lineup.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks investment results that generally correlate (before fees and expenses) to the total return performance of the EEFund Video Game Tech™ Index.  The index is comprised of companies that are primarily engaged in a business activity supporting or utilizing the video gaming industry (“Video Gaming Companies”). Under normal circumstances and the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (plus borrowings for investment purposes) in the component securities of the index. 

 The portfolio is overweight in technology and consumer cyclical relative to the category average by 4.7 and 2.5 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are communication services and financial services, with communication services underweighting the average portfolio by 5.0 percentage points of assets and financial services similar to the average. The strategy owns 90 securities and is less top-heavy than peers. Specifically, 29.8% of the portfolio's assets are concentrated within the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category average's 64.0%.

Above 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 a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential 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.

Average

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 Video Game Tech ETF

GAMR tracks an equity index of global firms that support, create or use video games. Stocks are assigned to pure-play, non-pure-play or conglomerate baskets, and weighted equally within each.

GAMR tracks an index of committee-selected companies from around the globe that support, create, or use video games. Stocks are assigned to primary, secondary, conglomerate, and small-cap baskets, equally weighted within each.

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