Mars attacks … the market!

There is a small but growing corner of the ETF world dedicated to extraterrestrial investing. The latest entrant is Roundhill Investments, which last week launched its Space and Technology ETF (MARS). It’s an actively managed fund focused on space-related technology, including GPS, weather forecasting and communications. Will that capture the hearts of so many investors who have gazed up at the night sky and wondered about the possibilities? More importantly, will it attract investors who haven’t given that a thought?

“Whether we know it or not, we are engaging with space-enabled technologies every day,” Roundhill ETF strategist Thomas DiFazio said, adding that much of the time, “we really have no idea.”

There’s Room in Space

Numerous aerospace and defense exchange-traded funds make investments in space technologies, but only a few are dedicated to the niche category. The biggest is the $821 million ARK Space and Defense Innovation ETF (ARKX), followed by the $358 million Procure Space ETF (UFO). Another issuer, VanEck, filed for a forthcoming Space ETF in February, which may resemble its existing Space Innovators UCITS ETF, domiciled in Ireland.

One reason for looking to invest in companies that venture beyond the blue marble: $1.8 trillion. That’s the predicted size of the global space economy by 2035, according to McKinsey and the World Economic Forum, DiFazio said. Maybe there’s something to that. UFO is up 10% year to date and up 90% over 12 months. While ARKX is up 4% so far this year, it’s gained 68% over a year.

A look at the MARS ETF:

• It invests predominantly in communications and industrials, which together make up about 89% of the portfolio.
• Its biggest holdings are Rocket Lab (10%), AST SpaceMobile (10%) and EchoStar (9%).
• Absent from the portfolio is SpaceX, as the ETF only invests in publicly traded securities. If and when that company’s IPO happens, likely later this year, the investment committee may consider it, though it’s not a given that SpaceX will go to MARS.

Space Junk: Anyone remember the 2013 sensation that was the film Gravity, in which space debris orbiting the earth destroys a shuttle and sends Sandra Bullock’s character on a heart-pounding quest for survival? Well, there’s a company (Astroscale) in the MARS fund focused on avoiding just such a situation, by finding ways to clear space debris. “It’s like the Waste Management of the space economy,” DiFazio said. “That’s a real concern. Some of these [space craft] lose power or they have issues and are inoperable. Astroscale can step in and address some of those problems.”

Some investors are making like Beyoncé and standing in the light of HALOs.

So-called heavy asset, low obsolescence stocks are all the rage on Wall Street as investors look to hedge against disruption by artificial intelligence. The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD), for instance, is up 16% so far this year, which is more than the S&P 500 is expected to return during the entire year. If the fund keeps up that pace, it could climb 140% by the end of 2026, according to a report from Barron’s. The relative cost effectiveness of these stocks is causing some advisors to shift gears and run for the HALOs.

“The valuation gap is still pretty wide,” said Rob Thummel, a senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital. “In other words, HALO stocks look a lot cheaper than the mega-cap techs. There’s definitely still room for that trade to continue.”

HALO Effect

Some of the biggest HALO players, like Exxon-Mobil and Walmart, have outperformed so far this year, with their respective stocks up 26% and 10% year to date. But beyond investing in the regular asset-rich companies (oil and gas, fast food, brick-and-mortar retailers and the like), advisors can also turn to products investing in AI infrastructure, like data storage devices, network switches and fiber optic cable companies. Although big tech companies are spending money, Thummel said, they’re buying from “enablers.” “A lot of these companies own valuable resources that are really hard to replace, and so they have high free cash flow yields, pay back decent dividends to shareholders, and buy back stock,” he told ETF Upside. “That has spurred the rotation out of the mega-cap tech and into some of these HALO stocks.”

And it’s not just Schwab. ETFs with allocations to HALOs have generally performed well of late:

• The American Beacon GLG Natural Resources ETF (MGNR), a fund that focuses on natural resources, is up 14% YTD.
• The VanEck Retail ETF (RTH) has its top two highest allocations to Walmart and Amazon and is up 3.63%.

Not to Burst Your Bubble, But… Thummel doesn’t see the relative retreat from big-name tech stocks as stemming from fears of an AI bubble, as some have speculated. “A lot of these companies and mega-cap techs, their earnings have grown along with their stock prices,” he said. “Their PE ratios aren’t super inflated, but they still are higher than other sectors.”

Over half the carbon in American bodies is estimated to come from a single source: Corn. (Bear with us, we promise there’s an ETF angle here.)

The country is highly dependent on corn, not just for crunchy chips, but also for making sweeteners, fuel and feed for industrially farmed animals. Production of that commodity may soon falter due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the US’s war with Iran. It’s not just petroleum that’s affected by the shutdown, as the waterway is also a major corridor for sulfur, ammonia and urea, ingredients in nitrogen-heavy fertilizers that help us grow a ridiculous amount of corn (and other crops). And unlike with oil, there is no strategic reserve in the US for nitrogen, said Jake Hanley, director of investments at ETF issuer and service provider Teucrium.

“We basically operate on a just-in-time process here,” Hanley said. “People have no idea how much corn we consume … It’s up to 10% in your gas tank [in the form of ethanol],” and “globally, corn’s No. 1 use is to feed animals.”

Planting a Seed

Large-scale farmers are currently weighing whether they will prioritize planting corn or soybeans this spring, and that decision will be informed in part by the availability of fertilizer, Hanley said. While corn takes nitrogen from the soil as it grows, soy does the opposite, helping to fix nitrogen in the ground via the symbiotic relationship the legumes have with certain bacteria. In short, the country could produce less corn and more soy, affecting futures prices and the ETFs focused on them. But there are downstream effects of a potential corn shortage, which might raise costs across the food sector:

• About half of the global food supply is dependent on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, chemical engineer Robert Rapier said in a recent Forbes article. About a third of such fertilizer comes from urea shipments, and the Middle East accounts for as much as half.
• This year, corn futures are up 5% after dipping slightly in 2025. Soybean futures have climbed nearly 15% year to date, and the effects of the war may not have been priced in yet.
• The Teucrium Soybean Fund (SOYB) is up 12% year to date, and its Corn Fund (CORN) is up 5%.

So Much Corn: “The prices right now are near the cost of production … [Corn] supplies are shrinking globally, but we still have plenty,” Hanley said. “The longer this lasts, the more risk you have, as Brazil goes to plant. They’re on an opposite calendar as us.”