The SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF (XES) was launched on 06/19/2006, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the Energy ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment.
Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency.
If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies.
Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other such characteristics.
This area offers many different investment choices, such as simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies; however, not all of these strategies can deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is sponsored by State Street Global Advisors. It has amassed assets over $304.40 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Energy ETFs. Before fees and expenses, XES seeks to match the performance of the S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services Select Industry Index.
The S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services Select Industry Index represents the oil and gas equipment and services sub-industry portion of the S&P Total Markets Index. The S&P TMI tracks all the U.S. common stocks listed on the NYSE, AMEX,NASDAQ National Market and NASDAQ Small Cap exchanges. The Oil & Gas Equipment Index is a modified equal weight index.
Cost & Other Expenses
When considering an ETF's total return, expense ratios are an important factor. And, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins in the long term if all other factors remain equal.
Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.35% for XES, making it one of the least expensive products in the space.
XES's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 0.36%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
ETFs offer diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk, but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.