WisdomTree Battery Val Chn & Innvt ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 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 an underweight in quality exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And a low quality exposure is rooted in stocks with higher financial leverage and lower profitability. 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. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

Bloom Energy

Joby Aviation

Archer Aviation

Ballard Power Systems

MFS Intermediate Income Trust

Boeing

Altus Midstream

AAR CORP.

Ivanhoe Electric Inc / US

EnerSys

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. WisdomTree Battery Val Chn & Innvt ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. The leading factor in 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 parent firm's excellent risk-adjusted performance, as shown by its average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.3 stars, also supports the process. Lastly, the process is limited by the turnover of talent across its parent firm. The firm's asset-weighted manager tenure of three years suggests it could do more to retain portfolio managers.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks to track the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the WisdomTree Battery Value Chain and Innovation Index (“Index”).  The adviser employs a “passive management” investment approach designed to track the performance of the index. The index is designed to provide exposure to equity securities of exchange-listed companies globally, and which are primarily involved in the investment themes of Battery and Energy Storage Solutions (“BESS”) and Innovation. The fund will concentrate its investments to approximately the same extent as the index. The fund is non-diversified. 

 The portfolio is overweight in industrials and basic materials relative to the category average by 51.7 and 23.2 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are technology and communication services, underweight the average by 69.0 and 9.5 percentage points of assets, respectively. The strategy owns 131 securities and its assets are more dispersed than peers in the category. In particular, 30.1% of the portfolio's assets are concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the typical peer's 52.4%. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 50% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

WisdomTree’s  team is comparable to peers, resulting in an Average People Pillar rating. There’s a sizable bench of five managers listed on the fund. Together, they manage a total of 114 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: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

Average

People

WisdomTree is improving, but its shaky global fund lineup and uncertain trajectory hold its rating to Below Average. 

WisdomTree’s research organization has long been a strength. Under CIO Jeremy Schwartz, the team has generated creative, economically sound ideas and evolved them into investable products, like the efficient core series. A recent focus on investor education spawned the Portfolio Analysis Tools Hub, an online platform that taps the team’s brainpower to help investors make better investment decisions.

The firm’s product lineup is a mixed bag. To complement its core lineup of fundamentally weighted strategies, WisdomTree has recently launched funds targeting established factors instead of trendy themes—an encouraging reorientation. Yet the shutdown of WisdomTree U.S. Growth and Momentum ETF calls WisdomTree’s commitment to these funds into question, and vestiges from its laxer product-development era look ripe for closure. Its European lineup features risky trading tools that are hard for investors to use well. 

WisdomTree’s future may hinge on WisdomTree Prime, its blockchain-based digital wallet. The launch reflects founder and CEO Jonathan Steinberg’s conviction in the disruptive potential of the blockchain. Prime shouldn’t hurt WisdomTree fund investors (most funds on the platform are zero-fee), but it may distract the firm from shoring up its core offering.

Below Average

Parent

WisdomTree Battery Value Chain and Innovation Fund

WBAT tracks a tier-weighted index that provides global exposure to companies involved in battery & energy storage solutions and innovation. The index uses a multi-factor investment process to select and weight equities.

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Stellantis N.V. 

XPeng

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News for WisdomTree Battery Value Chain and Innovation Fund ETF (WBAT)