Thematic Investing
Dynamic Theme Machine
Capture themes as they emerge
The Dynamic Theme Machine is a quantitative thematic strategy that uses artificial intelligence to detect and invest in emerging and established themes. The strategy rotates through themes, buying attractive ones and selling those in decline.
ETF fund informationthemes simultaneously detected
themes held in the fund
texts used to find themes
Why invest in the Dynamic Theme Machine?
Themes can drive equity market returns, but not all themes work all the time. Some themes are attractive while others are fading away. This strategy offers access to attractive themes while avoiding declining ones.
Top themes
The leading themes in the portfolio, ranked by active weight, are:
Digital advertising and media streaming
Artificial intelligence and cloud technologies
Cancer treatments
Mental health and neurology
Biological research and technology
Other themes
The fund also has exposure to the following themes:
Genetic medicine
Genetic editing is projected to reach a USD 30 billion market by 2030. In 2023, the US approved its first gene therapy. Genome sequencing costs fell from USD 1,200 in 2015 to USD 500 in 2024.
Satellite communications
Satellites can now connect directly to mobile phones and in a few years getting data from satellites will be common. The number of successful orbital launches more than doubled from 114 in 2020 to 263 in 2024.
Immersive gaming
Augmented reality devices keep getting better and are being adopted by consumers. In the last two years Ray-Ban and Meta sold over 2 million smart glasses. Virtual reality still remains in its infancy, though.
Autonomous vehicles
In the US, the number of driverless taxi rides has more than doubled in the last year to 200,000 per week, showing autonomous vehicle technology is making it into the real world.
Travel and leisure
More consumers, especially younger ones, prioritize experiences over goods, driving travel and leisure spending. Older generations, including boomers, are also spending more as they retire in good health and with wealth.
The strategy
The investment process of the Dynamic Theme Machine has three parts. First, we detect themes from a vast amount of data, including company earnings calls, news articles and management interviews using a form of AI called natural language processing. Second, we use sentiment analysis – a process which classifies whether a text is positive, negative, or neutral based on the vocabulary choice – to select the most attractive companies. Third, we purchase the selected themes and their beneficiaries using Robeco’s quantitative models.
Portfolio construction is done through Robeco’s quantitative portfolio optimizer and this results in a portfolio of about 25 themes and around 100 stocks. The portfolio has good factor exposures and is risk controlled with a tracking error of about 5% (source: Robeco).
The strategy enables clients to have a balanced exposure to emerging and established themes through the use of AI, proven quantitative models and with supervision from Robeco’s strong quant and thematic teams.
Investment process
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