Finance

Invesco launches ETF to maximize on the tech concentration craze

Published

6 months ago

December 14, 2024

Concentration & credit conundrums in 2025

Invesco launched an exchange-traded fund designed to give investors exposure to the top 45% of companies in the Nasdaq-100 Index.

Brian Hartigan, the firm’s global head of ETFs and index instruments, runs Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which is the fifth-largest ETF in the world, according to VettaFi. Now Hartigan is taking on the Invesco Top QQQ ETF (QBIG), which launched Dec. 4.

According to Hartigan, there is a demand to capture the megacap concentration story within the Nasdaq.

“That’s what investors were asking us for. How do I dial up that, that exposure and really capture the majority of the drivers of returns in the Nasdaq,” Hartigan said on CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.

As of Wednesday, some of Invesco Top QQQ ETF’s top holdings were Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, according to Invesco’s website.

Hartigan notes investors can balance out their portfolio risk with similar funds.

“You have this precision that investors are using ETFs to really balance out either under concentration or over concentration for their portfolios,” he said.

As of Friday’s close, Invesco Top QQQ ETF is up around 5.5% since its debut.

Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, notes other new funds have launched to allow investors to be concentrated on megacaps.

“We’ve seen other issuers launch products either targeting the largest mega-cap names or specifically avoiding them. And what that tells you is issuers are clearly aware of this battle of the markets right now. I think we’re going to continue to see sort of this tug of war play out moving forward,” he said.

Finance

UK’s FCA teams up with Nvidia to let banks experiment with AI

Published

2 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Business Finance News

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

LONDON — Britain’s financial services watchdog on Monday announced a new tie-up with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to let banks safely experiment with artificial intelligence.

The Financial Conduct Authority said it will launch a so-called Supercharged Sandbox that will “give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation.”

Starting from October, financial services institutions in the U.K. will be allowed to experiment with AI using Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI Enterprise Software products, the watchdog said in a press release.

The initiative is designed for firms in the “discovery and experiment phase” with AI, the FCA noted, adding that a separate live testing service exists for firms further along in AI development.

“This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so,” Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, said in a statement. “We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth.”

The FCA’s new sandbox addresses a key issue for banks, which have faced challenges shipping advanced new AI tools to their customers amid concerns over risks around privacy and fraud.

Large language models from the likes of OpenAI and Google send data back to overseas facilities — and privacy regulators have raised the alarm over how this information is stored and processed. There have meanwhile been several instances of malicious actors using generative AI to scam people.

Nvidia is behind the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to train and run powerful AI models. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to give a keynote talk at a tech conference in London on Monday morning.

Last year, HSBC’s generative AI lead, Edward Achtner, told a London tech conference he sees “a lot of success theater” in finance when it comes to artificial intelligence — hinting that some financial services firms are touting advances in AI without tangible product innovations to show for it.

He added that, while banks like HSBC have used AI for many years, new generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT come with their own unique compliance risks.