IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jjrfmx/v18y2025i8p449-d1722360.html

Falling Short in the Digital Age: Evaluating the Performance of Data Center ETFs

Author

Listed:
  • Davinder K. Malhotra

    (School of Business, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA 19144, USA)

  • Ivar Kirkhorn

    (School of Business, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA 19144, USA)

  • Frank Ragone

    (School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA)

Abstract

This study evaluates the performance of U.S. data center Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) relative to major equity and technology benchmarks, using monthly returns from January 2000 through December 2024, with particular emphasis on the COVID-19 period and the subsequent post-vaccine era. Data center ETFs have not provided better risk-adjusted returns even though they are often advertised as access points to the digital economy. Digital infrastructure demand increased through the pandemic but did not improve the performance of these funds which stayed weak across both traditional and conditional multi-factor asset pricing models. These ETFs struggle with asset selection and market timing proficiency, which leads to relatively poor performance results during volatile market conditions. The downside risks linked to these funds tend to match or exceed the downside risks of broader indices like the S&P 1500 Information Technology Index. Although these investments are based on strong thematic narratives, they do not achieve returns that align with investor expectations.

Suggested Citation

  • Davinder K. Malhotra & Ivar Kirkhorn & Frank Ragone, 2025. "Falling Short in the Digital Age: Evaluating the Performance of Data Center ETFs," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-17, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:18:y:2025:i:8:p:449-:d:1722360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/18/8/449/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/18/8/449/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferson, Wayne E & Schadt, Rudi W, 1996. "Measuring Fund Strategy and Performance in Changing Economic Conditions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(2), pages 425-461, June.
    2. Kon, Stanley J & Jen, Frank C, 1978. "Estimation of Time-Varying Systematic Risk and Performance for Mutual Fund Portfolios: An Application of Switching Regression," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(2), pages 457-475, May.
    3. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frank J. Fabozzi & Davinder K. Malhotra, 2025. "Rolling in the green? A closer look at cannabis ETFs’ market munchies," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(3), pages 239-254, May.
    2. Cortez, Maria Céu & Andrade, Nuno & Silva, Florinda, 2022. "The environmental and financial performance of green energy investments: European evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    3. François-Éric Racicot & Raymond Théoret, 2022. "Tracking market and non-traditional sources of risks in procyclical and countercyclical hedge fund strategies under extreme scenarios: a nonlinear VAR approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, December.
    4. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, January.
    5. Gagliardini, Patrick & Ossola, Elisa & Scaillet, Olivier, 2019. "A diagnostic criterion for approximate factor structure," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(2), pages 503-521.
    6. Lars Hornuf & Gül Yüksel, 2022. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Investments: A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 9724, CESifo.
    7. Anjum, Sohail & Qayyum, Unbreen & Qureshi, Madeeha Gohar, 2019. "Aggregate performance evaluation of US Equity Mutual Funds - Explaining the performance of Growth Funds vs. Value Funds," MPRA Paper 100043, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Matallin-Saez Juan Carlos, 2008. "The Dynamics of Mutual Funds and Market Timing Measurement," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 1-37, December.
    9. Sudipta Das, 2019. "Asset Pricing Test Using Alternative Sets of Portfolios: Evidence from India," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 26(3), pages 339-354, September.
    10. Chrétien, Stéphane & Kammoun, Manel, 2024. "Representative investors versus best clienteles: Performance evaluation disagreement in mutual funds," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    11. Simlai, Prodosh E., 2016. "Time-varying risk, mispricing attributes, and the accrual premium," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 150-161.
    12. Fletcher, Jonathan, 2018. "Betas V characteristics: Do stock characteristics enhance the investment opportunity set in U.K. stock returns?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 114-129.
    13. Cuthbertson, Keith & Nitzsche, Dirk & O'Sullivan, Niall, 2022. "Mutual fund performance persistence: Factor models and portfolio size," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Hugo Inzirillo & R'emi Genet, 2021. "Performance vs Persistence : Assess the alpha to identify outperformers," Papers 2111.06886, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    15. Massa, Massimo & O'Donovan, James & Zhang, Hong, 2022. "International asset pricing with strategic business groups1," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 339-361.
    16. Fletcher, Jonathan, 2021. "International equity U.S. mutual funds and diversification benefits," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 246-257.
    17. François-Éric Racicot & William F Rentz & David Tessier & Raymond Théoret, 2019. "The conditional Fama-French model and endogenous illiquidity: A robust instrumental variables test," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-26, September.
    18. Ľuboš Pástor & M Blair Vorsatz & Jeffrey Pontiff, 0. "Mutual Fund Performance and Flows during the COVID-19 Crisis," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 791-833.
    19. Turtle, H.J. & Zhang, Chengping, 2012. "Time-varying performance of international mutual funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 334-348.
    20. Manuel Ammann & Sebastian Fischer & Florian Weigert, 2018. "Risk Factor Exposure Variation and Mutual Fund Performance," Working Papers on Finance 1817, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Nov 2018.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:18:y:2025:i:8:p:449-:d:1722360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask MDPI Indexing Manager to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.