ETF Spotlight on SPDR S&P Homebuilders (XHB), part of a recurring series.

Assets: $562 million

Holdings: XHB’s components are a mix of retailers, such as Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and Williams Sonoma (WSM), homebuilders such as KB Home (KBH) and materials suppliers such as Leggett Platt (LEG).

Objective

XHB tracks the S&P Homebuilders Select Industry Index.

What’s Good

This fund is a good cross-section of industries that are directly affected by activity in the real estate market. Other similar funds have weightings mostly in homebuilding companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs), but investors who want to spread the risk out a little more and get exposure to several areas of the real estate market might be interested in XHB.

The Latest News

• Last month, new home sales rose 11%, the largest amount in eight years
• On the downside, while that number rose, the median sales price of those homes declined 12% to $206,200
• The Case-Shiller Index, on the other hand, rose for the first time in 2006; the index tracks the home prices in the 20 largest U.S. cities
• Consumer confidence sank last month as more Americans became concerned about unemployment
• This fund is both a play on real estate as well as retail, so it’s subject to the activity in both sectors, good or bad
• XHB is up 24.2% year-to-date

Tags: ETF 101, ETF Spotlight, Homebuilders, Real Estate, Sector ETFs, XHB