State Street Global Advisors has expanded its line of sector exchange traded funds to include two new funds that track financial services and real estate investment trusts, along with cutting the fees on the whole Select Sector SPDR suite.
The Financial services Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEArca: XLFS) and the Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSEArca: XLRE) began trading Thursday, October 8, according to a press release.
The new ETFs are seen as a way to provide targeted exposure to the financial services and real estate sectors, and the sector funds are coming out ahead of revisions to the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) structure.
S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI recently announced that the real estate sector, excluding mortgage REITs, is being moved out of the broader financial sector and will be made its own sector. [Sector Classification Change Could Boost REITs ETFs]
“Investors of all types are increasingly seeking to express a targeted investment viewpoint,” James Ross, executive vice president and global head of SPDR Exchange Traded Funds at State Street Global Advisors, said in the press release. “As investors continue to expand their uses of sector ETFs, they are interested in gaining more granular exposure to financial companies, in particular being consistent with evolutions in the GICS standards.”
XLRE will try to reflect the performance of the Real Estate Select Sector Index, which include real estate management and development and REITs, excluding mortgage REITs. The underlying index has a dividend yield of 3.36%.
Top holdings include Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) 12.7%, American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT) 8.4%, Public Storage (NYSE: PSA) 6.7%, Equity Residential (NYSE: EQR) 5.9% and Crown Castle International Corp. (NYSE: CCI) 5.7%.
Sub-sector allocations include specialized REITs 30.1%, retail REITs 23.1%, residential REITs 15.4%, health care REITs 12.1%, office REITs 10.0%, industrial REITs 4.5%, hotel & resort REITs 2.9% and real estate services 2.1%.
XLFS will try to reflect the performance of the Financial Services Select Sector Index, which tracks areas like diversified financial services, insurance, banks, capital markets, consumer finance, thrifts, mortgage finance and mortgage REITs. The underling index has a dividend yield of 1.9%.
Top holdings include Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) 10.4%, Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) 10.2%, JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) 9.6%, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) 6.9% and Citigroup (NYSE: C) 6.5%.
Sub-sector tilts include diversified banks 36.3%, multi-sector holdings 10.7%, asset management & custody banks 8.8%, regional banks 7.1%, investment banking & brokerage 6.8%, property & casualty insurance 6.5%, life & health insurance 6.5%, consumer finance 5.6%, multi-line insurance 4.8%, specialized finance 4.4%, insurance brokers 2.3% and thrifts & mortgage finance 0.2%.
The widely observed Financial Services Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF) is seen as a broader version that encompasses both XLFS and XLRE sub-sectors. Market observers can still track the broader financial sector through XLF, which will remain unchanged, but now, investors can take more targeted exposure with the new GICS sector classifications when using a large cap sector rotation strategy.
Along with the two new sector ETF launches, State Street is lowering the fees on its whole Select Sector SPDR ETF suite to 0.14% from 0.15%.
“When we launched Sector SPDRs in 1998, our expense ratio was 0.65 percent. As more and more institutional and now individual investors have incorporated Sector SPDRs into their investment strategies, we have been able to drive our overall expenses down,” Dan Dolan, Director – Wealth Management Strategies, Select Sector SPDR Trust, said in the press release.
For more information on new fund products, visit our new ETFs category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.