After 30 Years, the King of ETFs Faces a Fight for Its Crown
State Street’s SPDR S&P 500 fund changed investing forever, ushering in the era of indexing and instant access to funds.
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Few champions can stay on top forever—even the ones who virtually invent the game. On Jan. 29 the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust turns 30. With $375 billion in assets, it’s the biggest exchange-traded fund on the planet, but competition for the No. 1 spot is getting fierce.
Known by everyday investors and pros alike by its ticker symbol, SPY, the fund simply tracks the S&P 500 index of the largest US public companies, for a modest fee of 0.095% of assets per year. It’s the go-to product especially for institutional money managers who want a fast and dependable way to hop in and out of the market. But other ETFs follow the same index at a third of its expense ratio and have become a magnet for everyday investors. In the past year, BlackRock Inc.’s $302 billion iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and the $275 billion Vanguard S&P 500 ETF have added tens of billions of new assets while SPY posted outflows.