Chowing Down With The New Restaurant ETF

More than 200 new exchange traded products have come to market this year and there are still nearly two full trading months to go, so it is safe to say more new exchange traded funds are on the way.

It is also safe to say that with so many new ETFs coming to market, it is hard for even ETF junkies to get excited about each rookie fund. Frankly, not every new ETF warrants getting excited about. Since the The Restaurant ETF BITE, which debuted last week, was invented in this space, it is worth getting excited about. 

After all, BITE fills a void as the first dedicated restaurant ETF. The Restaurant ETF was launched by Big Tree Capital's Kevin Carter and ETF Managers Group, a provider of bespoke services to the ETF Industry.

The new fund "tracks The BITE Index, an equal-weighted index of all restaurants that are publicly traded in the United States with a market cap of $200 million or greater and $1 million of daily average turnover. It is rebalanced semi-annually in June and December and is currently comprised of 50 companies," according to a statement.

Related Link: Short-Term Chipotle Investors Lose From E. Coli Outbreak; Is Your Portfolio At Risk?

As Benzinga reported last week, BITE takes a smart approach in that it is an equal-weight ETF. Smart because a cap-weighted restaurant ETF would be dominated by the likes of McDonald's Corporation MCD (0.14 percent), Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG (2.37 percent), Starbucks Corporation SBUX (0.34 percent) and Yum! Brands, Inc. YUM (1.69 percent).

Speaking of Chipotle, the stock fell 2.5 percent Monday on nearly quadruple the average daily volume on news the company closed some stores in the Northwest due to an E. coli outbreak. BITE weathered that almost storm with aplomb, rising 1.5 percent on more than double the average daily volume established to this point in the ETF's still short lifespan.

"There has never been a lack of investor appetite (no pun intended) for a Restaurant based Equity ETF, and we finally have one now thanks to the recent launch of BITE (ALPS The Restaurant ETF, Expense Ratio 0.75%). In only its fourth day of trading history today, BITE has traded moderate volumes thus far, but this is to be expected given the newness of the fund," said Street One Financial Vice President Paul Weisbruch in a note out Monday.

As of October 30, Chipotle was the fifth-largest holding in BITE's underlying index at a weight of nearly 2.7 percent. As of that date, Dow component McDonald's was the only stock commanding a weight of over three percent in BITE's index.

"Given the investor buzz that we have noticed in previous months in regards to issues like Shake Shack Inc. SHAK, we have good reason to believe that people will pay attention to BITE as a packaged managed strategy within the growing 'Restaurant' Equity space," adds Weisbruch.