Why State Street’s SPYM Is Treasury’s Top Choice for Trump Accounts

No one likes getting picked last for dodgeball … or investment accounts.

The Treasury Department selected State Street’s SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF (SPYM) as the “initial default investment” for newly opened Trump Accounts, tax-advantaged savings vehicles for children under 18, which became available for initial deposits last week. Products from Vanguard and iShares were also included in the menu. The move reinforces the notion that ETFs have become the industry investment strategy of choice, said Benjamin Hernandez, research analyst at TMX VettaFi.

“Ten or 15 years ago, if there was a similar program available, this initial five-fund list may have been mutual funds instead,” Hernandez said. “It really says that the US Treasury is more aware that investors are gravitating toward the ETF vehicle.”

SPYM, On a Whim?

SPYM has performed well this year, up 9.4% year to date. It’s also cheaper than its big brother, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), and boasts a slightly lower expense ratio than one notable exclusion from the list, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO). (The latter is currently the largest ETF in terms of assets.) Hernandez said he was surprised it didn’t make the cut, but that once the program begins operating, the government may include it. The other funds on the list, he said, made sense from a risk management perspective. “It introduces younger investors to, ‘Hey, if you want to get the higher gains, you’ll have to assume more risk in mid- and small caps that inherently have that volatility,’” Hernandez said.

The other ETFs listed as primary investments for Trump Accounts have performed similarly year to date:

• The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), with $892 billion in assets, is up 9%.
• The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) manages $663 billion and is up 9.6%.
• The State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF (SPTM) oversees $13 billion and is up 9.45%.

There may be a “patriotic component” to the decision, since SPY was the first ETF ever listed in the US, and SPYM is a derivation of the original fund. But questions remain regarding whether, and when, switching from the default holding to the other approved choices is possible, since there isn’t guidance from the Treasury just yet.

Cost Is King: The guiding philosophy for understanding why these funds were chosen should be cost, not brand recognition, said Jeff Judge, a founding partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners. This is in part because the Trump Accounts law states that for a certain period up until the first day of the year that the account holder turns 18, investments can’t charge fees of more than 10 basis points.

“This isn’t a curated ‘best of’ list. It’s a compliance list,” Judge said. “Any fund with a higher expense ratio, any leveraged or inverse product, any fund not tracking a broad US equity index, was disqualified before the Treasury got to a rationale.”