Dave Portnoy helps launch new BUZZ ETF that tracks hyped stocks

Dave Portnoy is promoting a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) with a focus on positive shareholder equity, which is due to debut on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange

Portnoy, the founder of the popular sports and pop culture website Barstool Sports, partnered with the creators of VanEck Social Sentiment ETF (BUZZ) to launch the new investment vehicle. Portnoy became a day-trading phenomenon last year when the COVID-19 pandemic forced sports betting to pause. He translated his notoriety with sports bettors to traders of the day, sharing his trade wins and losses every day on social media and YouTube.

BUZZ will invest in 75 shares worth at least US $ 5 billion, receiving the most positive sentiment on the Internet and social media, using artificial intelligence to search for mentions on the web. Specifically, the ETF algorithm monitors 15 million posts per month to measure which stocks have the most positive investor sentiment based on online conversations. It then ranks the top 75 stocks on the BUZZ NextGen AI US Sentiment Leaders Index.

Online sentiment has boosted unprecedented volumes of trading so far this year. The conversation, led by retail investors and day traders, took so-called meme stocks like GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) to new heights. The most recent target of online forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets was Rocket Companies (RKT), which had a 71% increase on Tuesday.

Portnoy, who received an equity stake in BUZZ, said the algorithm was built five years ago. In 2020, the Buzz index outperformed the S&P 500 by 40%, he said.

Some of the main stakes in BUZZ include Twitter, Tesla, Draft Kings, Virgin Galactic, Advanced Micro Devices, Plug Power, Ford, Novavax, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Ninety percent of the shares in BUZZ are in the following five sectors: technology, discretionary consumption, communication services, health and industrial.