The rise of 'the cloud' and cloud computing has been one of the most potent trends in investing over the past decade. It would be difficult to name an aspect of everyday life, whether it be personal computing, e-commerce or government services, that hasn't been transformed by cloud computing.
That's all well and good. But where does it leave ASX investors? After all, cloud computing is easy to spot in daily life, but investing in it directly? That's arguably not so straightforward.
Luckily, there is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for that, as they say.
It's none other than the BetaShares Cloud Computing ETF (ASX: CLDD).
This ETF from provider BetaShares does pretty much what it says on the tin. It offers exposure to a portfolio of stocks that are leaders in the global cloud computing industry.
In selecting stocks for this portfolio, companies are assessed on the proportion of their revenues that are derived from cloud computing. Unless a stock meets the threshold, it does not qualify for entry. That means companies that you might first associate with 'the cloud', such as Microsoft, NVIDIA, or Alphabet, don't make the cut.
So what kind of companies does CLDD hold then? Well, here's a list of the current top ten, as well as their weighting in the ETF's portfolio:
- Snowflake Inc (NYSE: SNOW) at a 4.7% weighting
- Box Inc (NYSE: BOX) at 4.6%
- Twilio Inc (NYSE: TWLO) at 4.6%
- Paycom Software Inc (NYSE: PAYC) at 4.3%
- Shopify Inc (NASDAQ: SHOP) at 4.2%
- Zscaler Inc (NASDAQ: ZS) at 4.2%
- Qualys Inc (NASDAQ: QLYS) at 4.1%
- Digital Reality Trust Inc (NYSE: DLR) at 4.1%
- Procore Technologies Inc (NYSE: PCOR) at 4.1%
- ServiceNow Inc (NYSE: NOW) at 4%
As you can tell by all of those 'NYSEs' and 'NASDAQs', CLDD's portfolio is dominated by companies domiciled in the United States of America. In fact, the US contributes 87.7% of this ETF's portfolio. Companies from Canada, Japan, Israel, and China make up the remaining 12.3%.
Digital cloud upload symbol illustrating modern online investing via Fool Australia platform.
What has this cloud-computing ETF returned?
CLDD units have had a rough couple of months, losing 17.77% of their value over the three months ending 30 April 2025.
It gets better if we zoom out a little, though. Over the 12 months to 30 April, investors have enjoyed an 8.71% return. CLDD has averaged a return of 7.64% per annum over the past three years.
The Betashares Cloud Computing ETF charges a management fee of 0.67% per annum. That works out to be $67 a year for every $10,000 invested.
