Looking for broad exposure to the Industrials - Transportation/Shipping segment of the equity market? You should consider the State Street SPDR S&P Transportation ETF (XTN), a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on January 26, 2011.
While an excellent vehicle for long term investors, passively managed ETFs are a popular choice among institutional and retail investors due to their low costs, transparency, flexibility, and tax efficiency.
Investor-friendly, sector ETFs provide many options to gain low risk and diversified exposure to a broad group of companies in particular sectors. Industrials - Transportation/Shipping is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 5, placing it in top 31%.
Index Details
The fund is sponsored by State Street Investment Management. It has amassed assets over $209.28 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Industrials - Transportation/Shipping segment of the equity market. XTN seeks to match the performance of the S&P Transportation Select Industry Index before fees and expenses.
The S&P Transportation Select Industry Index represents the transportation segment of the S&P Total Market Index.
Costs
Expense ratios are an important factor in the return of an ETF and in the long term, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive counterparts, other things remaining the same.
Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.35%, making it one of the least expensive products in the space.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.72%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Industrials sector -- about 100% of the portfolio.
Looking at individual holdings, Avis Budget Group Inc (CAR) accounts for about 5.96% of total assets, followed by Rxo Inc (RXO) and Arcbest Corp (ARCB).The top 10 holdings account for about 30.08% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
Year-to-date, the State Street SPDR S&P Transportation ETF has added roughly 12.34% so far, and it's up approximately 39.64% over the last 12 months (as of 05/12/2026). XTN has traded between $75.27 and $117.59 in this past 52-week period.
The ETF has a beta of 1.36 and standard deviation of 25.95% for the trailing three-year period, making it a high risk choice in the space. With about 46 holdings, it has more concentrated exposure than peers.
Alternatives
State Street SPDR S&P Transportation ETF carries a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Thus, XTN is a good option for those seeking exposure to the Industrials ETFs area of the market. Investors might also want to consider some other ETF options in the space.
First Trust NASDAQ Transportation ETF (FTXR) tracks Nasdaq US Smart Transportation Index and the iShares U.S. Transportation ETF (IYT) tracks Dow Jones Transportation Average Index. First Trust NASDAQ Transportation ETF has $941.28 million in assets, iShares U.S. Transportation ETF has $2.14 billion. FTXR has an expense ratio of 0.6%, and IYT charges 0.38%.
Bottom Line
To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.
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State Street SPDR S&P Transportation ETF (XTN): ETF Research Reports
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).