Copying the style of Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, or Bill Ackman has been popular with investors for years. Since each is forced to release his holdings each quarter using a 13F form, it’s easy for regular folks to directly copy these ultra-successful (and ultra-rich) investors.
There’s an ETF that tries to make it even easier for individual investors to follow in the shoes of the most successful market participants. It’s the Direxion iBillionaire Index ETF (NYSE:IBLN).
The iBillionaire index tracks the leading 30 large-cap stocks that a select group of U.S.-based investment billionaires have been heavily investing in. The data is based on their 13F filings.
The index is made up of 30 mid- and large-cap stocks which are all equally weighted at approximately 3.33% of the portfolio, with the index being re-balanced quarterly. Top holdings include Alphabet, Apple, Time Warner, Microsoft, and General Motors. Surprisingly, Berkshire Hathaway is not among the 30 holdings.
The ETF does pay a quarterly dividend of approximately $0.04 per share, which is a trailing yield of 0.6%. It’s a relatively small fund with a market cap of just $37.5 million.
Results haven’t been great. Shares are up 11.5% since the ETF’s August, 2014 debut. The S&P 500 is up 23.4% in the same time. Both results don’t include dividends. If we did include dividends, the S&P 500 lead would be even higher.
The management fee is currently 0.65%, which is guaranteed by the fund manager through at least 2018. Without that guarantee, the normalized expense ratio is 1.01%, which is quite high.
