Quick Read – SPMO has surged 26% year to date versus SPY’s 10%, and over 10 years it has more than doubled SPY’s 247% total return. – SPMO’s 100-stock concentration and semi-annual rebalancing can cause sharp lag during leadership shifts and create higher capital gains…
stributions in taxable accounts. – The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is the default equity holding for tens of millions of investors, and for defensible reasons: it tracks the S&P 500 at an expense ratio of 0.0945%, offers deep liquidity, and closed at $749.17 on July 13, 2026. Yet SPY holders have quietly missed the market this year
A close cousin, still built from the same 500 stocks, is up more than two and a half times as much year-to-date. The alternative sits within the S&P family, costs about 4 basis points more, and rotates on a rules-based schedule that most SPY owners have never examined. That fund is the Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF (NYSEARCA:SPMO), and the gap between the two in 2026 is the reason to look closely.
Why SPY Still Deserves Its Seat The fund works because it is boring in the best way. It owns the entire large-cap U.S. market weighted by size, so NVIDIA accounts for 7.58% of the fund, Apple for 6.66%, and Microsoft for 4.91%. Over ten years, the ETF has returned 247.11%, and over one year it is up 20.13%.