Pass on this ETF

Article Excerpt

HORIZONS ACTIVE A.I. GLOBAL EQUITY ETF $25 (Toronto symbol MIND; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $5.0 million) invests in major global equity indexes primarily available through North American-listed ETFs. However, the fund’s portfolio manager is, in fact, a computer. It picks indexes through a process called “adaptive artificial intelligence.” Essentially, it aims to spot patterns in market indexes by continuously analyzing market data. This hopefully lets the computer correctly identify the factors that drive their overall performance. The computer monitors more than 50 investment metrics in order to determine which ETFs to buy. They include an 80-day moving average, fund volatility, and the betas and short positions of a broad range of ETFs. This fund was launched on November 1, 2017, and has yet to develop any kind of consistent track record. Still, “black boxes” that use past data to predict the future have been around a long time. None have ever worked consistently. In the real world, market patterns continually change as…