The 3 Biggest Thematic ETF Opportunities

Jeff Spiegel, U.S. head of BlackRock megatrend and international ETFs, believes that artificial intelligence is a transformative innovation, but he doesn’t think most investors are positioned to fully capture the growth of the technology. In this episode of Talk ETFs, Spiegel sits down with etf.com senior analyst Sumit Roy to dive deeper into AI, medical innovation and one other big theme for 2024. 

Perhaps no theme has captured investors’ collective imaginations as artificial intelligence. AI took the world by storm following the release of ChatGPT, and since then, all investors can think about is how to profit from the growth of this groundbreaking technology. 

“We’ve a lot of performance in some of the big, well-known names associated with [AI]. We see performance broadening out; we think investors need to own a wider array of firms to capture the opportunity,” he said.

Investing in Genomics and Neuroscience

Another area where Spiegel sees opportunity is in the health care sector, particularly within the cutting-edge genomics and neuroscience spaces. 

“Two areas that have really been challenged the last year or so—in part due to high interest rates—are areas like genomics and neuroscience, where we’re seeing incredible breakthroughs but also really strong valuations; in each case, in-line with or even lower than pre-pandemic levels,” Spiegel explained. 

Jeff Spiegel is BlackRock’s U.S. head of iShares megatrend and international ETFs. In this role, he manages product, sales and marketing for the megatrend and international franchises. 

Previously, Spiegel led retail distribution strategy in BlackRock's U.S. and Canada Defined Contribution group, managing strategic relationships, custom product builds as well as advisor-sold and platform sales strategy.