MoneyTalks: VFS Groups' James Whelan is bullish on Metaverse stocks. Here’s why

Money Talks is Stockhead’s regular drill down into what stocks investors are looking at right now. We’ll tap our extensive list of experts to hear what’s hot, their top picks, and what they’re looking out for.

Today we hear from VFS Group investment manager James Whelan.

What’s hot right now?

Whelan says he is all about the Metaverse and will continue to be throughout 2022.

“Without sounding like a psychopath, I firmly believe we are ground floor on everything to do with the Metaverse,” he said.

“We don’t know exactly what it will look like but we do know it’ll be led by Facebook and because of that it’ll be awful.

“However, every company will have to be there, and every person will have to visit – it will have amazing practical uses and the companies that drive them should do well,” he said.

If you want easy access to the universe of metaverse stocks (ugh), Whelan explained the easiest thing to do is to buy the ETF META.

“It’s run by Roundhill Investments and in my view they’re the leader in the innovative ETF space,” he says.

“But for now, the ETF does look quite like just buying the Nasdaq with more weight given to companies bigger in the space.

“If you want something that’s going to do well from all the excess bandwidth that’s needed across the board then you want to get access to digital infrastructure.”

Whelan said there’s an ETF by Roundhill for that too, called BYTE.

“It’s full of names you’ve never heard on in cloud services, bandwidth provision and all the other boring things we need to prop up a few million people needing streaming HD to their VR headset so they can look at shoes or get a medical exam.”

ASX listed metaverse-focused stock picks

“Everyone knows that I’m not the single stock guy – I have people who do that for me and that’s how I prefer it,” Whelan says.

“However, I do have some frightfully good self-directed clients who I just help with admin, and they point and shoot.”

SINGULAR HEALTH GROUP (ASX:SHG)

Whelan said there was some correlation with stock tipsters in the name Singular Health Group (SHG).

“I usually stay away from medical tech companies (remember the guys with the retractable syringe?) but this one has me tingling,” he says.

“Their tech which renders a 2D scan into a 3D image is amazing and hooks up to the “Mediverse” so they can be viewed on an Oculus or a handheld device with the patient or specialist to plan a course of action or on what to build.

“I bounced it off a former Radiologist friend who gave it the nod of approval from a professional standpoint.

“It’s a loss-making company burning cash so there’s that risk at play, however it’s the right product in the right space that we know is growing.”

REMSENSE TECHNOLOGIES (ASX:REM)

The second stock pick by Whelan is the recently IPO’d engineering service provider Remsense Technologies (REM) whose activities focus on imaging for mine sites and oil rigs.

“So, you can get a scan of your rig assessed for safety and efficiency and take that scan and model it into a walkthrough world,” he said.

“Then you can take management or trainees through a virtual world of your mine site to show them what’s what or what needs to change.

“It’s classic metaverse stuff for the engineering world or the ‘Engiverse’ I guess if you’re the sort of person to give it a stupid name.”

Either way Whelan said he has had a run through presentation with the company and he sees space for them in the market.

“They’re not burning as much cash (relatively speaking) but you can smell that they have deals in the pipeline in the new year,” he added.

“That’s why you dial in to the Zoom calls with the company, just to feel for energy in their voice.

“There’s energy there.”

To find out more about other ASX listed stocks within the metaverse-sphere check out this article written by Stockheader Eddy Sunarto.

The views, information, or opinions expressed in the interviews in this article are solely those of the interviewee and do not represent the views of Stockhead.

Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article.