Preparing For Apple Earnings, ETF Style

You probably know that Apple AAPL reports earnings after the market closes today, but you may not know that a staggering 70 ETFs offer exposure to the purveyor of iPads and iPhones. In fact, Apple is the most widely held stock by U.S. ETFs with exposure of over $10.4 billion, or almost 4% of Apple's market cap, according to ETF Channel. Obviously, all ETFs are not created equal and that is the case when it comes to those funds offering exposure to the Nasdaq's favorite darling. Of the 70 ETFs with Apple exposure, the stock accounts for 20% or more of three ETFs. Go figure, but the Internet Architecture HOLDRs IAH offers a 22.4% allocation to Apple. The thinly traded PowerShares NASDAQ-100 BuyWrite PQBW is next with over 21% to Apple and the PowerShares QQQ QQQQ comes in third with about 20.6% devoted to Apple. Nine more ETFs have weights ranging from 10.1% to 13.6% to Apple. Among them: Technology Select Sector SPDR XLK with almost 12%, the Vanguard Information Technology ETF VGT with almost 11% and the iShares S&P North America Technology ETF IGM at 10.3%