Recent options activity in the largest ETF in the U.S. landscape in terms of assets under management at $146 billion, SPY (SPDR S&P 500, Expense Ratio 0.09%) which has involved mostly notable upside year-end call buying gives us a quick opportunity to discuss S&P 500 Index tracking ETFs.
SPY itself, despite the increase in call buying lately, has seen net outflows of approximately $3.7 billion in recent sessions, and related ETF, IVV (iShares Core S&P 500, Expense Ratio 0.07%) has lost more than $400 million via net redemptions as well. IVV is no slacker in its own right, now the fourth largest ETF in the U.S. marketplace with $45.4 billion in AUM.
Vanguard entered the S&P 500 Index ETF tracking market much later than State Street (1993 with SPY) or iShares (2000 with IVV) with VOO (Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, Expense Ratio 0.05%) which launched in 2010.
One can see the trend here rather evidently, and that is “declining expense ratios” over time since the launches of these funds, and VOO has raised $11.7 billion since inception.
Institutional managers generally have other specific requests of their S&P 500 Index tracking ETF of choice outside of expense ratio as well, including options availability and liquidity and tracking needs.
Broadly categorized in the Large Cap Blend Equity arena across U.S. based ETFs, there are several other AUM giants within this sub-category that may surprise some, including the $8 billion IWB (iShares Russell 1000, Expense Ratio 0.15%), RSP (Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight, Expense Ratio 0.40%) which has $5.2 billion now in AUM, and two $4 plus billion funds SPLV (PowerShares S&P Low Volatility Portfolio, Expense Ratio 0.25%) and VV (Vanguard Large-Cap Index, Expense Ratio 0.10%) and OEF (iShares S&P 100 Index, Expense Ratio 0.20%) which has $3.9 billion currently. [ETF Options to Track the S&P 500]
SPDR S&P 500 ETF
SPY_ETF
For more information on Street One ETF research and ETF trade execution/liquidity services, contact Paul Weisbruch at pweisbruch@streetonefinancial.com.
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