17 important things you should know about State Street Global Advisors SPY ETF

Updated: December 27, 2020

100

Bull Case

High net assets
3-year return above the benchmark
5-year return above the benchmark
10-year return above the benchmark
15-year return above the benchmark
Low expense ratio

Bear Case

No Bear case arguments for now!

Before we start: if you’re looking for SPY “stock” price, you can quickly find it out by visiting Finny and typing "SPY quote". If you’re looking for a quick scoop on SPY "stock" (price chart, key stats, buy or sell analysis and holdings), go to Finny and look for "SPY". You’ll get all this info in one place.

Are you looking to buy or sell SPY? Or perhaps you’re looking for SPY fact sheet, and learn about its alternatives? If so, you came to the right place.

In this SPY ETF review, we’ll address key questions our readers have been asking us about this fund, above and beyond what you can find in its prospectus, and on Morningstar or Yahoo Finance.

Here is what you’ll be able to find in this review:

Fact Sheet: SPY performance, returns, expense ratio, holdings and dividend yield;
Analysis: SPY buy or sell; the pros and cons of investing in SPY ETF;
Alternatives: other ETFs and mutual funds you should consider as alternatives to SPY.

And here is the list of questions we’ll answer:

Describe SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).
What is SPY underlying index?
What are SPY holdings?
What is SPY performance? What are SPY historical returns?
How many up and down years did SPY have historically?
What is SPY dividend yield?
What is SPY expense ratio?
What is SPY tax efficiency (tax-cost ratio)?
What is SPY beta? How would you assess SPY risk?
What is SPY Sharpe ratio?
What is SPY Finny Score? SPY buy or sell?
What are the pros of investing in SPY? What are SPY buy reasons?
What are the cons of investing in SPY? What are SPY sell reasons?
Compare and contrast: SPY vs SPY.
Compare and contrast: SPY vs VOO.
Compare and contrast: SPY vs QQQ.

So let’s start. Scroll down to the question that interests you the most.

Fact Sheet

1. Describe SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).

The Trust seeks investment results that, before expenses, generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the component common stocks of the S&P 500 Index.

2. What is SPY underlying index?

S&P 500.

3. What are SPY top holdings?

SPY has 505 stock holdings and 0 bond holdings.

The top 10 holdings represent 27.96% of total assets. Here are the top holdings:

Name	Symbol	% Assets
Apple Inc	AAPL	6.45%
Microsoft Corp	MSFT	5.65%
Amazon.com Inc	AMZN	4.77%
Facebook Inc A	FB	2.33%
Alphabet Inc A	GOOGL	1.79%
Alphabet Inc Class C	GOOG	1.76%
Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B	BRK.B	1.48%
Johnson & Johnson	JNJ	1.33%
Procter & Gamble Co	PG	1.26%
NVIDIA Corp	NVDA	1.14%

4. What is SPY performance? What are SPY historical returns?

SPY has generated the following returns:

1-month return is 4.06%;
3-month return is 12.13%;
1-year return is 18.29%;
3-year return is 13.36%;
5-year return is 15.26%;
10-year return is 13.75%;
15-year return is 9.59%.

5. How many up and down years did SPY have historically?

In the last 10 years, SPY had 9 up years and 1 down year.

6. What is SPY dividend yield?

SPY yield is 1.57%.

7. What is SPY expense ratio?

SPY expense ratio is 0.09%. The expense ratio of a fund is the total percentage of fund assets used for administrative, management, and all other expenses.

8. What is SPY tax efficiency (tax-cost ratio)?

1-year ax cost ratio is 0.79%;
3-year ax cost ratio is 0.67%.

9. What is SPY beta? How would you assess SPY risk?

3-year beta is 1.00;
5-year beta is 1.00;
10-year beta is 1.00;
15-year beta is 1.00.

10. What is SPY Sharpe ratio?

3-year Sharpe ratio is 0.55;
5-year Sharpe ratio is 0.75;
10-year Sharpe ratio is 0.94;
15-year Sharpe ratio is 0.58.

Analysis

11. What is Finny Score? buy or sell?

Finny Score is 100. Our quantitative analysis shows 6 reasons to buy and 0 reasons to sell it, resulting in the Finny Score of 100.

12. What are the pros of investing in SPY? What are SPY buy reasons?

The following are SPY strengths from our perspective:

SPY net assets are $322.49 billion. This fund is a popular choice with retail and institutional investors.
SPY 3-year return is 13.36%, which is in line with the 3-year return of the benchmark index (S&P 500 TR USD), 13.47%.
SPY 5-year return is 15.26%, which is in line with the 5-year return of the benchmark index (S&P 500 TR USD), 15.37%.
SPY 10-year return is 13.75%, which is in line with the 10-year return of the benchmark index (S&P 500 TR USD), 13.87%.
SPY 15-year return is 9.59%, which is in line with the 15-year return of the benchmark index (S&P 500 TR USD), 9.68%.
SPY expense ratio is 0.09%, which is considered low. Nice job picking a low-cost fund.

13. What are the cons of investing in SPY? What are SPY negatives?

There are no visible red flags.

Alternatives

14. Compare and contrast: SPY vs SPY.

Both SPY and SPY are ETFs. SPY and SPY have the same 5-year return (15.26%). SPY and SPY have the same expense ratio (0.09%). Below is the comparison between SPY and SPY.

	SPY	SPY
Segment	Equity: U.S. - Large Cap	Equity: U.S. - Large Cap
Net Assets	$322.49B	$322.49B
Expense Ratio	0.09%	0.09%
Management Style	passive (index-based)	passive (index-based)
Underlying Index	S&P 500	S&P 500
YTD Return	16.89%	16.89%
1-Year Return	18.29%	18.29%
3-Year Return	13.36%	13.36%
5-Year Return	15.26%	15.26%
10-Year Return	13.75%	13.75%
Dividend Yield	1.57%	1.57%

SPY profile: The Trust seeks investment results that, before expenses, generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the component common stocks of the S&P 500 Index.

For further information, check out SPY vs SPY comparison details.

15. Compare and contrast: SPY vs VOO.

Both SPY and VOO are ETFs. SPY has a lower 5-year return than VOO (15.26% vs 15.33%). SPY has a higher expense ratio than VOO (0.09% vs 0.03%). Below is the comparison between SPY and VOO.

	SPY	VOO
Segment	Equity: U.S. - Large Cap	Equity: U.S. - Large Cap
Net Assets	$322.49B	$177.61B
Expense Ratio	0.09%	0.03%
Management Style	passive (index-based)	passive (index-based)
Underlying Index	S&P 500	S&P 500
YTD Return	16.89%	16.76%
1-Year Return	18.29%	18.22%
3-Year Return	13.36%	13.39%
5-Year Return	15.26%	15.33%
10-Year Return	13.75%	13.81%
Dividend Yield	1.57%	1.61%

VOO profile: The Fund seeks to track the performance of its benchmark index, the S&P 500. The Fund employs an indexing investment approach. The Fund attempts to replicate the target index by investing all of its assets in the stocks that make up the Index with the same approximate weightings as the Index.

For further information, check out SPY vs VOO comparison details.

16. Compare and contrast: SPY vs QQQ.

Both SPY and QQQ are ETFs. SPY has a lower 5-year return than QQQ (15.26% vs 24.11%). SPY has a lower expense ratio than QQQ (0.09% vs 0.2%). Below is the comparison between SPY and QQQ.

	SPY	QQQ
Segment	Equity: U.S. - Large Cap	Equity: U.S. - Large Cap
Net Assets	$322.49B	$144.62B
Expense Ratio	0.09%	0.2%
Management Style	passive (index-based)	passive (index-based)
Underlying Index	S&P 500	NASDAQ-100 Index
YTD Return	16.89%	46.61%
1-Year Return	18.29%	49.07%
3-Year Return	13.36%	25.95%
5-Year Return	15.26%	24.11%
10-Year Return	13.75%	20.18%
Dividend Yield	1.57%	0.55%

QQQ profile: The Fund seeks to provide investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index. The Index measures the average performance of a broadly diversified group of equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc.

For further information, check out SPY vs QQQ comparison details.

In the SPY review, we covered SPY key stats (return, performance, yield, expense ratio, and holdings), buy and sell analysis, and alternative investments. If this review was helpful to you, feel free to check out other mutual fund and ETF reviews.