A new exchange traded fund (ETF), which is the abovementioned, will be listed on 31 Jan 2024 on the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

This ETF came in at the appropriate time when the Land of the Rising Sun is looking to rise again as an economic powerhouse after a period of more than three “lost” decades. Using Japan’s main representative stock index, the Nikkei 225, which was around 35,963 points as of 19 Jan 2024, it is fast approaching the last high of 38,915 which was set back in Oct 1989¹.

However, what caught my attention were the two phrases “active” and “powered by AI”; these are firsts in the SGX ETF universe. Though active, the ETF will be benchmarked against the Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX). On the artificial intelligence front, using datasets ranging from fundamentals, technical, qualitative, quantitative, etc., the AI and machine learning models will select between 50 and 100 securities for the