SPDR

For the game character SPDR, see I Love Bees.

SPDR funds are shares of a family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) traded in the United States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific and managed by State Street Global Advisors (SSgA). Informally, they are also known as Spyders or Spiders. SPDR is a trademark of Standard and Poor's Financial Services LLC,[1] a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The name is an acronym for the first member of the family, the Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (NYSE: SPY), which is designed to track the S&P 500 stock market index. As of September 2010, SSgA also manage the second-largest ETF in the world in the form of SPDR Gold Shares.[2]

The funds are formulated as unit investment trusts. In 2007, SSgA rebranded its other United States ETFs as SPDRs, including the StreetTRACKS family and its other flagship ETF shares, the DOW DIAMONDS (NYSE: DIA), that tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This move united all U.S. ETFs managed by SSgA, a total of 23 at that time, under a single brand.[3] At the end of 2006, the total portfolio that became known as SPDRs had $102 billion of assets under management.[3]

Contents

Other funds

In 1995, Mid-Cap SPDRs (NYSE: MDY) were launched by the Bank of New York to track Standard & Poor's S&P 400 index of middle-market equity shares.[4][5]

The DIAMONDS (NYSE: DIA) were developed, like the original SPDR, by SSgA in cooperation with the American Stock Exchange.[4] DOW DIAMOND shares are designed to track the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

In 1998, SSgA and Merrill Lynch introduced the Sector Spiders, nine funds which follow the ten GICS sectors of the S&P 500.[6][7] Because the S&P 500 contains only eight telecommunications companies, those companies are a part of the information technology SPDR (NYSE: XLK), and that one fund represents those two sectors.

SSgA also launched a number of index-based ETFs under the brand StreetTRACKS. These were renamed SPDRs in 2007.

SSgA also manages ETFs that are sold on exchanges outside the United States.

In Australia SSgA manages three SPDR branded ETFs. They are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and are the following:

Complete listing

See also

References

  1. ^ "Trademark search on SPDR". United States Patent and Trademark Office. http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp. Retrieved 11 January 2010. 
  2. ^ "Largest ETFs: Top 25 ETFs By Market Cap". ETFdb. http://etfdb.com/compare/market-cap/. Retrieved 2010-11-03. 
  3. ^ a b "Spyders widen web". TheStreet.com. 2007-01-08. http://www.thestreet.com/funds/etf/10331299.html. 
  4. ^ a b Gastineau, Gary (2002). The Exchange-Traded Funds Manual. John Wiley and Sons. p. 35. ISBN 0471220922. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CIYoyIrP6cIC&pg=PA35&vq=DIAMONDS&dq=nathan+most&source=gbs_search_s&sig=A21ufSMuOmdexYilIbqVVZs1t4o. Retrieved 2008-04-24. 
  5. ^ "About MidCap Spiders". American Stock Exchange. http://www.amex.com/MDY/aboutMDY.html. Retrieved 2008-04-24. 
  6. ^ Ferri, Richard A. (2008). The ETF Book, John Wiley and Sons, 191 ISBN 0470130636.
  7. ^ Gastineau, Gary (2002). The Exchange-Traded Funds Manual. John Wiley and Sons. p. 37. ISBN 0471220922. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CIYoyIrP6cIC&pg=PA37&vq=DIAMONDS&dq=nathan+most&source=gbs_search_s&sig=qeWoIlxh7lAPFFxL9FoJnFhFxyA. Retrieved 2008-04-24. 

External links