Motif Investing, a vehicle that allows you to invest in ideas, is now allowing individuals, organizations and brands to create and share their own collections of stocks or exchange-traded funds online—and, soon, make money when other investors buy them.
As we’ve written in the past, Motif was founded last year to give individuals a new way to invest based on themes. Instead of choosing to buy stock in specific companies, Motif allows investors to invest in different portfolios of stocks, each called a “motif,” that are centered around everyday ideas. For example, motifs can be built around themes and ideas ranging from cloud computing to mobile Internet.
Until now, Motif’s customers have been able to purchase pre-built “motifs”– portfolios of stocks, bonds or ETFs linked by common themes such as tablet computing, inflation or home improvement. These were assembled by Motif’s in-house research team. While investors could customize those motifs to their liking, they did not have the ability to build their own bespoke motifs from scratch until now.
The “Build Your Own” feature now allows users to build their own vehicles around ideas. Companies in finance and other industries can also build custom motifs that highlight their brands.
Motif will also create an app store of sports for created motifs, which will be categorized as well. The price to purchase your own motif is $9.95, the same as a traditional motif. And later this spring Motif will begin allowing customers to buy others’ created motifs as well; and when that happens, the motifs’ creators will be eligible for compensation through a royalty payment.