It has become obvious where this obsession comes from. Combine the near-comatose levels of growth produced by the world's developed economies for the best part of 10 years with their demographic profile, where the population bulge slips inexorably towards what's laughably labelled 'the golden years', and you have an explanation.
As to the question of making money out of it, almost a year ago (29 April 2016) this column pointed out that the developed world's baby boomers had become the most powerful force in consumer spending. According to management consultant McKinsey & Co, those aged 60 and over would account for 18 per cent of global growth in consumer spending between 2015 and 2030. The only other group to come close was China's working-age adults.
Yet for all the potential this trend offers, it was tough for investors to craft portfolios that could be expected to profit from it. Step forward the world's biggest fund manager, BlackRock (US:BLK), which, among other things, runs the iShares stable of exchange traded funds (ETFs). Last autumn the manager launched an ETF - iShares Ageing Population (AGES) - that is designed to hold shares in companies that, according to the obligatory information, "derive significant revenues from the growing needs of the world's ageing population".
This ETF is one of four that iShares launched simultaneously with the aim of exploiting what it called "megatrends" - "powerful, transformative forces that could change the global economy, business and society". The other three ETFs in this quartet, all of which are listed in London and eligible for individual savings accounts (Isas), target companies at the cutting edge of healthcare, automation and robotics, and digitalisation.
Given that they are ETFs, each fund tracks an index and the benchmark for the AGES ETF is the Ageing Population index, which was built specifically for the ETF by the Deutsche Börse index provider, STOXX. The index's country bias is heavily weighted towards the US (36 per cent of the market value of its 231 components) and Japan (13 per cent); UK holdings comprise just 5 per cent. The sector weightings are towards healthcare (32 per cent), which is predictable, plus insurance (31 per cent) and financial services (11 per cent).
The ETF aims to replicate the construction of the Ageing Population index (rather than match its performance using derivatives - so-called 'synthetic replication'). This means that no holding has a heavy weighting. Nor, for that matter, will its leading holdings mean much to most UK investors, Bearbull included. The biggest - at almost 1 per cent - is Ionis Pharmaceuticals (US:IONS), which offers a tenuous UK link to the extent that it was founded by a former head of research at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Ionis's leading products are Spinraza, which treats spinal muscular atrophy and is one of just three drugs that the company has in production, and Ionis, the drug, which treats amyloidosis, a disease that causes organ failure through the build-up of a plaque and which - on a morbid yet topical note - killed Martin McGuinness last month.
The point of mentioning these treatments is to show that they are not especially targeted at the old, a comment that can be made about many of the products and services of the companies in the Ageing Population index. Sure, to be included in the index a company must generate at least half its revenue from sectors "relevant to the ageing population theme". But that's not quite the same as saying that it does derive at least half its income from helping those aged 60-plus.
Purely from the perspective of making money, that won't matter if returns from the AGES ETF match the backdated returns from the Ageing Population index - 95 per cent in the five years to the end of February, for example, compared with 53 per cent from the Stoxx global market index or - closer to home - 29 per cent from the FTSE All-Share index.
However, if we are trying to pin down an investment theme, we might as well try to be specific. True, the AGES ETF index brings the benefit of diversification, although its scattergun approach means it is almost incidental if it hits the ageing theme. It certainly looks a useful addition to an equity investor's tool kit, but it may be possible to construct a purpose-built portfolio that - whatever its returns - gets closer to its subject.
Dealing with this issue almost a year ago, I suggested five stocks that would owe any future success to the boomers - Harley-Davidson (US:HOG), Stryker (US:SYK), The Gap (US:GPS), Smith & Nephew (SN.) and Saga (SAGA). Granted, that's hardly enough for a portfolio and collectively in the year to end April shares in these five have done little to shout about - up 11 per cent against 16 per cent for the All-Share. Yet it is noticeable that only one, Smith & Nephew, makes it into the Ageing Population index. Most of all, I wonder why Harley-Davidson isn't in there. After all, nothing epitomises baby boomers more than Harley motor bikes - 'Hogs' - and it helps that Harley's shares are also the best performer of the five, up 26 per cent in sterling terms.
