State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), and creators of the world’s first ETFs, announced index changes to four of its low-cost SPDR® Portfolio ETFs™, with a combined $11.3 billion[1] in assets.
The index changes seek to respond to demand to provide a more stratified ETF toolkit that targets segments of the US equity market in a cost-effective way. For investors who prefer broad market exposure, the newly positioned funds include the only ETF currently available tracking the S&P Composite 1500® Index.
“‘Our goal is to offer products with purpose, providing a suite of low-cost precision exposures in an ETF wrapper that can then be deployed by investors as they build portfolios to deliver target investment outcomes,” said Rory Tobin, Global Head of SPDR Business at State Street Global Advisors. “There is strong investor demand for S&P benchmarks with over $12.5 trillion in global assets tracking their indices.[2] SPDR is now the only ETF provider that offers the full spectrum of low-cost S&P ETFs spanning the S&P 500®, S&P MidCap 400®, S&P SmallCap 600® and S&P Composite 1500® – as well as the S&P 500® Growth, Value and Dividend style exposures.”
“Almost 27 years ago to the day, we launched SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, the innovation that sparked the ETF investing revolution,” said Sue Thompson, Head of SPDR Americas Distribution at State Street Global Advisors. “Today we continue our history of democratizing investing with funds among the lowest cost in the industry – including an ETF indexed to the S&P 500 with a total expense ratio of 3 basis points. Taken together, our S&P products are designed to cater to both the ‘buy and hold’ investor as well as to those that value the flexibility of industry-leading levels of liquidity. In short, whichever feature investors value, we have a suite of S&P ETFs to suit their potential needs.”
The index and name changes detailed below are effective as of market open on January 24, 2020.
| Ticker | Current Name | New Name | Current Benchmark | New Benchmark | Expense Ratio |
| SPLG | SPDR Portfolio Large Cap ETF | SPDR Portfolio S&P 500® ETF | SSGA Large Cap Index | S&P 500 Index™ | 0.03% |
| SPMD | SPDR Portfolio Mid Cap ETF | SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF | S&P 1000® Index | S&P MidCap 400® Index™ | 0.05% |
| SPSM | SPDR Portfolio Small Cap ETF | SPDR Portfolio S&P 600 Small Cap ETF | SSGA Small Cap Index | S&P SmallCap 600® IndexSM | 0.05% |
| SPTM | SPDR Portfolio Total Stock Market ETF | SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF | SSGA Total Stock Market Index | S&P Composite 1500® Index | 0.03% |
Launched in 2017, the SPDR Portfolio suite was designed to give investors greater choice in low-cost ETFs. Comprising 22 SPDR ETFs that provide low-cost access to a wide range of core equity and fixed income asset classes, the suite of funds has been widely embraced by investors who have added nearly $40 billion of assets to the fund range in just over two years, bringing total assets in the SPDR Portfolio suite to $57.7 billion to date.[3] With these changes, nine of 11 low-cost equity SPDR Portfolios ETFs are now benchmarked to S&P indices, driving more consistency across the suite in terms of methodologies and market coverage, simplifying portfolio construction for investors.
In addition to these changes, a voluntary fee waiver of 0.10% will be implemented on the SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap ETF (SLY) to lower the fund’s expense ratio from 0.15% to 0.05% effective as of January 24, 2020.
For more information on State Street’s SPDR ETFs, please visit https://www.ssga.com/us/en/individual/etfs.
