By Jared Blikre

The 2020 playbook is back on Wall Street, but with a different cast.

Flows into thematic ETFs — funds built around big investing ideas like space, nuclear power, quantum computing, robotics, and crypto infrastructure — are surging in a way Strategas ETF Research compares to the ARK-era boom.

"The environment and leadership are different, but flows to Thematic ETFs are accelerating akin to 2020," Strategas ETF Research's Todd Sohn wrote in a recent note.

ETFs built around big investing ideas — space, nuclear, quantum computing, robotics, and crypto infrastructure — are seeing a 2020-style flow surge. Strategas ETF Research

There are a few critical differences.

The last boom was led by stay-at-home stocks, profitless tech, and Cathie Wood's ARK complex. This one is being pulled toward harder-tech trades, where the story is less about apps and software and more about rockets, reactors, chips, computing power, and energy demand.

SpaceX (SPCX) is the spark.

The stock is up nearly 30% since its IPO, and Wall Street has already wrapped the frenzy in new products. Eleven levered SpaceX ETFs began trading this week, with long and short SpaceX funds trading more than $1 billion on day one — a record start for levered single-stock ETFs, according to Strategas.

That kind of launch shows how fast the ETF machine now moves. A hot stock no longer has to wait months to become a tradable theme. It can become a trading ecosystem almost immediately.

But the tape is not just SpaceX.

Since the IPO, several big-idea ETF groups are still higher, even after many were hit during a June swoon and gave back ground after Wednesday's Federal Reserve decision.

Strategas counts nearly 400 thematic ETFs with almost $300 billion in assets. The menu is huge — so is the risk. Strategas found the average three-year drawdown across the thematic ETF universe was 32%, while more than 60% posted weak risk-adjusted returns and trailed the S&P 500 (^GSPC) over three years.

Thematic ETFs make big ideas easy to buy, but when the shelf gets this crowded, picking the right wrapper can matter as much as picking the right theme.

Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.

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