Trump's Wall Plans Lift This ETF

Politicians are no strangers to controversy and many are familiar with campaign trail bluster that ultimately goes unfulfilled. Love him or hate, President Donald Trump is moving forward with his plan to build a wall around the U.S.-Mexico border.

So Trump, no stranger to controversy, is at least attempting to make good on one of his campaign trail promises, which is more than can be said of many politicians. A cornerstone of Trump's campaign was stricter immigration policy. In addition to the border wall effort, the new president has also pledged to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities, or those cities opting to stand in violation of federal law in order to harbor illegal immigrants.

To be clear, this article is neither condemnation nor endorsement of Trump's immigration policies or the wall effort. It's merely to highlight an investment opportunity that is positively responding to the effort to build the wall. Enter the PowerShares Dynamic Building & Construction Portfolio PKB.

The PowerShares Dynamic Building & Construction Portfolio was one of a few dozen exchange traded funds printing all-time highs on Wednesday. Some of the ebullience surrounding PKB is being attributed to strong housing data, but PKB is not a homebuilder ETF on par with a fund such as the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF ITB.

Rather, the PowerShares offering tracks “companies that are primarily engaged in providing construction and related engineering services for building and remodeling residential properties, commercial or industrial buildings, or working on large-scale infrastructure projects, such as highways, tunnels, bridges, dams, power lines, and airport,” according to PowerShares.

Home to 30 stocks, PKB holds names such as Martin Marietta Materials Inc. MLM and Vulcan Materials Co. VMC, holdings that explain the ETF's leverage to speculation about Trump's wall plans.

As Benzinga noted Wednesday, The border wall will require an estimated $711 million of concrete and $240 million of cement. However, those materials costs pale in comparison to the estimated labor costs of building the wall. Trump has said the wall would cost an estimated $10–12 billion, but Bernstein Research pegs the actual number in the $15–25 billion range.

However, even if Trump's wall desires are never realized, PKB can still benefit if the new president is able to push through parts of massive $1 trillion infrastructure effort. A glance at PKB's roster indicate the ETF is bound to benefit from that scenario just as it has wall chatter.

PKB is up 6.2 percent since the start of 2017 and nearly 39 percent over the past year.