Miss Muffet Beware: The SPDRs Are Even Bigger This Year.NEW YORK New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- S&P Select Sector SPDR SPDR The Standard and Poor's depositary receipt. This is a tracking stock which trades like an index mutual fund which follows the S&P 500. It trades continuously. SPDR See Standard amp; Poor's Depositary Receipt (SPDR). Assets up 52% in '04, Trading Volume Trading volume The number of shares transacted every day. As there is a seller for every buyer, one can think of the trading volume as half of the number of shares transacted. That is, if A sells 100 shares to B, the volume is 100 shares. up 87%; Average Expenses Drop to 27 Basis Points S&P Select Sector SPDRs SPDRs SPDRs (Spiders) are designed to track the value of the Standard & Poor's 500 Composite Price Index. Stands for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipt. They trade on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol SPY. , a family of exchange-traded funds Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are Open Ended investment companies that can be traded at any time throughout the course of the day. Typically, ETFs try to replicate a stock market index such as the S&P 500 (e.g. (ETFs) that divide the S&P 500 into nine individual sector index funds, announced that it ended 2004 with assets of more than $9.4 billion, a 52% increase over 2003, itself a banner year for Select Sector SPDRs asset growth. Sector SPDRs now average more than $1 billion in assets per fund and trade an average of more than 1 million shares per fund per day. Leading 2004 asset growth across the nine sectors was Consumer Staples Consumer Staples The industries that manufacture and sell food/beverages, tobacco, prescription drugs, and household products. Notes: Proctor and Gamble would be considered a consumer staple company because many of its products are household and food related. , up 150% in assets, closely followed by Energy, which rose 148%, and Healthcare, up 131% in assets. "Two thousand and four was another strong year for us as individual and institutional investors Institutional Investor A non-bank person or organization that trades securities in large enough share quantities or dollar amounts that they qualify for preferential treatment and lower commissions. continued to discover the simplicity, cost efficiency and utility of building portfolios with ETFs," said Dan Dolan, Director - Wealth Management Strategies, S&P Select Sector SPDR Trust, and the architect of Select Sector SPDRs. "As the product continues to gain popularity, we see the possibility of S&P Sector SPDRs becoming a significant part of properly allocated portfolios." Lower Expenses S&P Select Sector SPDRs also announced a further decrease in its average expense ratio, from 28 to 27 basis points(a). This compares to annual expenses of 65 basis points for S&P Select Sector SPDRs when they made their 1998 debut. "Any reasonable steps we can take to make S&P Select Sector SPDRs more affordable, we'll take," said Mr. Dolan. "A quick comparison of any similar sector mutual fund or ETF ETF See Exchange Traded Fund. ETF See exchange-traded fund (ETF). on the market today will indicate how cost-effective S&P Select Sector SPDRs really are." A chart reflecting the asset growth in each of the nine Sector SPDRs follows. 2004 S&P Sector SPDR Fund Symbol Assets 12/31/04 Assets 12/31/03 Growth ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Consumer Staples XLP $ 760,838,590 $ 304,920,000 149.52% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Energy XLE $1,571,465,870 $ 633,650,000 148.00% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Healthcare XLV $1,052,963,170 $ 455,265,000 131.29% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Consumer Discretionary XLY $ 471,121,500 $ 280,261,000 68.10% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Financials XLF $1,139,759,400 $ 799,060,780 42.64% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Industrials XLI $ 780,139,080 $ 584,706,000 33.42% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Utilities XLU $1,686,580,920 $1,286,672,830 31.08% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Technology XLK $1,235,583,360 $1,096,464,380 12.69% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Materials XLB $ 707,692,920 $ 740,675,000 -4.45% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sector SPDRs Web site is located at www.spdrindex.com or www.sectorspdrs.com. About Select Sector SPDRs Select Sector SPDRs are unique ETFs that divide the S&P 500 into nine sector index funds: Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Energy, Financials, Healthcare, Industrials, Materials, Technology and Utilities. Select Sector SPDRs allow investors to customize their portfolios by picking and weighting the sectors to meet specific investment goals. Select Sector SPDR shares are actively traded on the American Stock Exchange American Stock Exchange (AMEX) Stock exchange in the U.S. Originally known as “the Curb,” it began as an outdoor marketplace in New York City c. 1850. It moved indoors to its present location in the Wall Street area in 1921. throughout the trading day In Business, the trading day is the time span that a particular stock exchange is open. For example, the New York Stock Exchange is, as of 2006, open from 09:30AM to 4:00PM. Trading days never take place on weekends. providing the attributes of a mutual fund, the focus of a sector fund, and the tradability of a stock. SSgA Funds Management, Inc. serves as the Adviser to the Trust and, subject to the supervision of the Board of Trustees board of trustees Politics The posse of thugs who oversee an institution's administration. See Board of directors. , is responsible for the investment management of the Select Sector SPDR Funds. An investor should consider investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses carefully before investing. To obtain a prospectus which contains this and other information, visit www.sectorspdrs.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing. The Select Sector SPDR is a trademark of the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and has been licensed for use. The stocks included in each Select Sector Index were selected by the compilation Compiling a program. See compiler. agent. The composition and weighting of each Index can be expected to differ to that of any similar index that is published by Standard & Poor's. Select Sector SPDRs bear a higher level of risk than more broadly diversified funds Diversified Fund A type of investment fund that contains a wide array of securities and is adequately diversified. A mutual fund classified as a "diversified fund" will actively maintain a high level of diversification in its holdings, thus reducing the amount of risk in the fund, . (a) Ordinary brokerage commissions apply when buying or selling Sector SPDR shares. ALPS Alps, great mountain system of S central Europe, c.500 mi (800 km) long and c.100 mi (160 km) wide, curving in a great arc from the Riviera coast on the Mediterranean Sea, along the borders of N Italy and adjacent regions of SE France, Switzerland, SW Germany, and Distributors Inc., a registered broker-dealer, is the distributor for the Sector SPDR Trust. |
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