SPLV has also been hot recently in terms of reeling in assets, taking in more than $340 million in recent days and giving it an asset base of $3.6 billion currently.
We have documented such activity in the past, not only earlier this year but throughout 2012 as it seems that investors still find appeal in historically “low volatility” segments of the U.S. equity market, such as Utilities, and this sector is well represented among the top holdings of SPLV (top weightings are CLX, SO, GIS, KMB, JNJ, ED, D, PEP, DUK, and NEE).
The reason we point this out is the clear overlap with top holdings in SPLV and XLU in terms of the Utility names, as the sector itself makes up 30.21% of the overall portfolio, so there is clearly interest right now in the sector and the concept of “low vol” continues to maintain popularity among managers.
SPDR Utilities
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