Investing in drone and drone technology

[Mrtreasuretoupee]

Been looking at investing in drone and drone tech. Let me paint a picture for you. Most of you have seen a quadcopter flying but that was most likely a glorified RC toy or at best a video camera platform. Imagine where you will be standing when you see the first delivery or "working" drone flying over your position then imagine how in ten years from that point how you wont be able to go outside without seeing at least one drone going about its business. Such an emerging market. What about investing in this emerging market? You could buy an ETF like "IFLY" that holds several drone related stocks. Even though it contains stocks like parrot that I think of as a toy company and gopro which has been really bad over the last year or more.  As well as real good companies like boeing and aerovironment. Or a company like Qualcomm that will not only provide processors (basically cell phone processors) and 5g communication technology that will be what drones and autonomous cars use to communicate with each other as well as cell phones. Any thoughts on this?

[Heroes821]

VTSAX

If they become profitable to appear on it, then you're already invested, if not then you probably are already owning someone that is manufacturing the parts to make, market, or sell the drones anyway.  Since VTSAX represents all publicly traded US companies yeah?

[ChpBstrd]

Reminds me of the Segway 12 years ago. They're everywhere now.

Seriously though, be careful when working with the next big thing.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/an-early-retiree-confesses-to-4-big-investing-mistakes-and-2-things-he-did-right-2017-03-14

[AlanStache]

No, dont.  Really, just dont.

I work in peripherally related fields and there are HUGE problems with the smaller drones.  One of the largest is no one wants to spend money on them.

Re urban/suburban delivery: I and most of my coworkers are very skeptical.  55lb is not a lot or weight, weather will be a problem, active surveillance ie radar, FAA, punk kids, insurance, gynormus racks of lipo batteries recharging give off stupid butt loads of heat, reliability of the small UAVs are bad.

Can you make a drone to deliver 5lb over 20 miles - yes.  Can you do it profitably - maybe but other tech is much easier & more reliable.

Re big UAVs?  VTSAX already covers them.

I would much rather invest in an etf dealing in pot than UAVs, lots of people are willing to pay money for pot.  And in someways there are fewer problems with The Man  :-)

Are "Segways" everywhere or are cheap knockoff "hover boards" everywhere?  I assumed they were made by different companies. 

I do own IGM (north american tech) but I have no interest in rolling the dice to pick a winning sub-sector.

[surfhb]

Invest in me and my start up.   ;)   I'm working on a UAV autonomous flight mapping system.   

SO MANY applications once the FEDs open the skies!   Yes.....your pizza, sandwiches, Home Depot, Amazon order will all be delivered this way.   Guaranteed

[maizefolk]

Just buy a drone, get a drone pilot license, and start a side gig as a professional drone pilot. 

In my opinion, this is probably the best way to "invest" in this growth sector.

I'd agree with this advice. This also makes it more likely you'd have a chance to get involved (and get some ownership) of a new or existing company with a drone-based business model at some point down the line if you have the ability and skill set to contribute sweat equity.

Right now there's a lot of venture capital and private equity money looking for places to invest, so when it comes to anything that is supposed to be the "next big thing," a regular person like you or me has a much better shot a getting their foot in the door with talent than money.

[Retire-Canada]

No, dont.  Really, just dont.

Yup. Invest in the total market.

I've worked for two companies that are designing and building commercial drones. There are lots of interesting applications for them. I don't see them flying overhead by the dozens delivering pizza and Amazon parcels anytime soon. Anything big enough to be useful is also quite dangerous to the general public. In terms of tech roll out once most cars and trucks are fully autonomous on the roads the next thing could be mass use of drones. That'll allow time for battery density to develop enough that a delivery drone can be a reasonable cost/capacity.