State Street Global Advisors changed indexes on seven of its equity funds from Dow Jones to Standard & Poor’s this week, aligning its U.S. large-, mid- and small-cap funds so that they use benchmarks from the firm that provides indexes for its SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPY) and SPDR S&P MidCap 400 ETF (NYSEArca: MDY).
In addition to getting new names and indexes, the seven funds have also adopted new tickers that build on the “SPY” and “MDY” trading symbols. They are:
- SPDR S&P 500 Value ETF (NYSEArca: SPYV)
- SPDR S&P 500 Growth ETF (NYSEArca: SPYG)
- SPDR S&P 400 Mid Cap Value ETF (NYSEArca: MDYV)
- SPDR S&P 400 Mid Cap Growth ETF (NYSEArca: MDYG)
- SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap ETF (NYSEArca: SLY)
- SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap Value ETF (NYSEArca: SLYV)
- SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap Growth ETF (NYSEArca: SLYG)
The change in benchmarks did not translate to significantly different sector allocations within the portfolios.
In SPYV, for instance, in spite of the change to the S&P 500 Value Index, financials continue to dominate the portfolio and now represent more than 27 percent of the basket.
Energy, industrials and consumer staples also remained at the top of the list in terms of sector weightings, similarly to when the ETF tracked the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Total Stock Market Index and went by the ticker ELV.
Bond Fund Changes
SSgA also changed the name and indexes on an intermediate- and a long-term bond fund, though the new indexes continued to be from Barclays, as they were previously. Their tickers didn’t change.
The bond ETFs are now called:
- SPDR Barclays Capital Intermediate Term Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: ITR)
- SPDR Barclays Capital Long Term Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEArca: LWC)
SPY, SSgA’s flagship fund and the biggest ETF in the world, had about $93 billion in assets as of Dec. 21. The company’s midcap strategy, MDY, had $12.3 billion in assets.
The changes are listed in the table below:
