Shares given the “cloud” label have been stock market favourites for years. However, they have been unable to escape the volatile mixture of rising interest rates, a weakening economy and a declining aversion to risk on the part of investors. Shares of former high fliers such as Salesforce, Shopify and Snowflake, for instance, have lost more than half their value this year. Even industry behemoth Amazon saw its share price fall over 30%. There are positive exceptions, though. “Big Blue” IBM and network engineer Arista bucked the generally negative trend over the same period, growing around 8%. All these companies together form the basis of the Solactive Cloud Computing Performance Index along with another nine components.
The sophisticated index selection and the above-average growth potential of the cloud sector are ultimately sufficient to ensure that the strategy barometer continues to assert itself against the broad technology field in both the short and medium term. Taking a six-month view, the index made up of 15 international cloud specialists outperformed the Nasdaq 100 by about 6% – and by as much as 17% over a three-year period. The benchmark, which is dominated by US components (87%), can also boast a strong track record since it was launched in April 2011. Since then the index has climbed 467.5%, or 16.2% p.a. Here too, the Solactive Cloud Computing Performance Index performed much better than the well-known Nasdaq 100: 100 percentage points better, to be exact.
The current price weakness of cloud shares could offer contrarian investors an attractive way in, particularly as the consensus of analysts is that the companies have upside potential across the board. Within the Solactive Cloud Computing Performance Index, the 12-month price targets range from 3.9% for IBM to 50.3% for Atlassian. The average for all 15 members is a highly respectable 28.7%. The positive outlook for prices is accompanied by positive expectations for profits. After adjusting for base effects at Amazon and Shopify, the estimated average earnings growth for the 15 components of the Solactive Cloud Computing Performance Index from 2023 to 2024 is just under 30%. If the current year is included, the adjusted rate of increase even rises by more than half.
Leonteq spotted the potential of the data cloud at an early stage, launching a tracker certificate on the Solactive Cloud Computing Performance Index back in 2013. Denominated in Swiss francs, the product tracks the barometer one to one and runs until the middle of next year. Since the underlying is a performance index, the dividend payments of the index members flow into the price calculation until the final fixing. The process is also an active one. which means that the barometer is reviewed at regular intervals and adjusted as required. This ensures that the composition is always up to date and prevents any clumping. In return, holders of the certificate have to factor in an annual fee of 1.2% p.a.
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