Robot arm to ring NASDAQ bell for launch of Robo-Stox index

In another first for robot-kind, a UR5 robot arm from Universal Robots will ring the NASDAQ closing bell on Tuesday to mark the launch of the Robo-Stox Global Robotics and Automation Index exchange-traded fund. It’s the first time a non-human has been given the task.

Of course, these days “ringing” the closing bell actually means pressing the button that activates it, which the UR5 will do while equipped with a three-fingered gripper from German company Schunk. Universal Robots was selected for the honor because it’s the type of business that Robo-Stox’s founders expect to make a big impact on the market very soon.

“We didn’t want to showcase a robot only used in a research lab. We wanted to show viable robotics technology, well-positioned for a future IPO, that is selling and being implemented in a wide range of industries today,” Frank Tobe, Robo-Stox co-founder and publisher of The Robot Report, said in a statement.

Universal Robots was founded in 2005 with the goal of making robot technology accessible to small- and medium-sized enterprises. Today, the Danish-based company’s robots are used in a variety of industries, including automotive, machine tools, medical, packaging, assembly, pharmaceutical and electronics.

The Robo-Stox ETF begins trading through Exchange Traded Concepts’ private-label ETF platform. It is represented by the ticker symbol ROBO.

[ photo courtesy of Universal Robots ]