In this episode of ETF Spotlight, I speak with Scott Helfstein, Executive Director at ProShares, about thematic investing.

2020 was the year of thematic ETFs. Due to the pandemic, we all had to adapt to new ways of working, shopping, and entertaining ourselves. Many companies benefitted from these trends and investors poured a lot of money into ETFs focused on themes like cloud computing, e-commerce, disruptive growth, work from home, and video gaming.

Which themes had the best performance in 2020 and will those trends persist? ProShares recommends three thematic trades for 2021: rerating, reopening, and reversion.

The ProShares MSCI Transformational Changes ETF (ANEW - Free Report) invests in companies that may benefit from four “transformational change” themes — future of work, genomics & telehealth, digital consumer, and food revolution. Apple (AAPL - Free Report) and Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) are among the top holdings.

The ProShares Online Retail ETF (ONLN - Free Report) focuses on global e-commerce companies. While the market share of online sales has been rising in the past few years, the trend accelerated last year. The ETF’s top holdings are Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) and Alibaba (BABA - Free Report).

The ProShares Pet Care ETF (PAWZ - Free Report) is the first and only ETF focused on the booming pet care industry. Chewy (CHWY - Free Report) and Freshpet (FRPT - Free Report) are its top holdings.