Columbia Select Technology ETF (SEMI)

The Columbia Select Technology ETF (SEMI) is an actively managed exchange-traded fund that seeks capital appreciation by investing in a narrow set of semiconductor, software, artificial intelligence, and technology infrastructure companies, holding at least 80% of its assets in technology and technology-related securities.

Hardware and the silicon foundation

The semiconductor and semiconductor equipment portion of Columbia’s portfolio represents the physical foundation of modern technology. The fund targets companies that design and manufacture the chips that power everything from smartphones to data centres, as well as the equipment makers and suppliers essential to getting those chips from design to production. This segment captures the capital-intensity and cyclicality of the semiconductor industry — periods of boom and shortage alternate with periods of overcapacity — but it also captures businesses with genuine technological moats, since the barriers to entering chip design and fabrication are extraordinarily high. The shift toward artificial intelligence workloads has reshaped what the industry manufactures, with demand for specialised chips outpacing demand for conventional processors.

Software, data, and artificial intelligence

Columbia’s holdings also extend into the software and data-analytics layer of technology. This includes companies building artificial intelligence platforms and machine learning technologies that help organisations process information, derive insights, and automate tasks. The AI expansion is relatively recent as a distinct investment category, but SEMI’s mandate now explicitly targets “data analytics solutions, artificial intelligence platforms, and machine learning technologies,” reflecting how central those capabilities have become to enterprise software. Unlike semiconductors, software businesses tend to have lower marginal costs once written, so they often achieve higher operating margins and more durable competitive advantages if their products win adoption.

Applications and end-user software

The fund’s scope also covers consumer-facing software applications, digital content platforms, and e-commerce solutions. These businesses sit closer to the end user than chip makers or enterprise software, and they tend to rise and fall with consumer spending and advertising cycles. This layer of the tech stack has proven more volatile than semiconductors or enterprise software, but it also captures the companies that are most visible to the average investor — the platforms where people work, shop, and spend leisure time.

Networking and hardware infrastructure

Finally, Columbia’s technology universe includes companies that design and manufacture hardware components and devices that form the backbone of computer networks and digital infrastructure. This spans from networking equipment to data-centre hardware to the components that route and process data across the internet. These businesses are often less glamorous than AI or consumer software, but they are essential, and their revenues are often more stable and recurring because they serve business customers with long upgrade cycles and high switching costs.

The active-management challenge in technology

Columbia Select Technology operates as an actively managed fund in a sector where many passive technology-focused products exist. The fund competes on the premise that careful stock selection can beat a broad technology index over time. Technology, like all sectors, sees its leadership rotate — the stocks that lead in one three-year period often lag in the next — and an active manager who can navigate that rotation rather than holding a fixed basket gains an edge.

However, the fund’s non-diversified structure means it can take concentrated bets. That amplifies both upside and downside risk. In technology booms, concentration is rewarded; in tech busts, it is punished. The expense ratio reflects the cost of active management, which is higher than a passive technology index fund.

How to research SEMI

Investors considering Columbia Select Technology should begin with the fund’s prospectus and fact sheet, which detail the investment strategy, the exact definition of “technology-related,” and the risks of concentration and sector-specific volatility. The quarterly and annual holding reports show which companies the managers own and how the portfolio has shifted, revealing whether managers are rotating among established players or taking bets on emerging technologies.

The most natural comparison benchmark is the S&P Global 1200 Information Technology Index, Columbia’s stated benchmark, or the broader S&P 500 technology sector. Over rolling three-, five-, and ten-year periods, comparing SEMI’s total return to these benchmarks shows whether the active management has added or subtracted value after fees. Tech sector performance varies widely across market cycles — in some years technology leads, in others it lags significantly — so a fair assessment requires looking across different market environments.

Because technology stocks are among the most researched and most liquid names on the exchange, a reader can cross-check Columbia’s holdings against independent research and form a judgment about whether the portfolio reflects genuine insight or merely follows consensus. The fund’s turnover rate, disclosed in the annual report, indicates how frequently the managers change the portfolio; high turnover can signal confidence in new ideas or mere restlessness, depending on the outcome.