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The SPDR S&P Transportation ETF (XTN) made its debut on 01/26/2011, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Industrials 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.
Market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, and are a good option for investors who believe in market efficiency.
There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies.
This kind of index follows this same mindset, as it attempts to pick stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance; non-cap weighted strategies base selection on certain fundamental characteristics, or a mix of such characteristics.
While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is sponsored by State Street Global Advisors. It has amassed assets over $481.82 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Industrials ETFs. Before fees and expenses, XTN seeks to match the performance of the S&P Transportation Select Industry Index.
The S&P Transportation Select Industry Index represents the transportation segment of the S&P Total Market Index.
Cost & Other Expenses
Since cheaper funds tend to produce better results than more expensive funds, assuming all other factors remain equal, it is important for investors to pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio.
With one of the least expensive products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.35%.
It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 0.87%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
Representing 100% of the portfolio, the fund has heaviest allocation to the Industrials sector.
When you look at individual holdings, Fedex Corporation (FDX) accounts for about 2.59% of the fund's total assets, followed by Hertz Global Holdings Inc (HTZ) and Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. (ODFL).