Launched on 06/19/2006, the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP) is a smart beta exchange traded fund offering broad exposure to the Energy ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
Market cap weighted indexes were created to reflect the market, or a specific segment of the market, and the ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on this strategy.
A good option for investors who believe in market efficiency, market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns.
If you’re the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking 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 $4.74 billion, making it one of the largest ETFs in the Energy ETFs. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Select Industry Index before fees and expenses.
The S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Select Industry Index represents the oil and gas exploration and production sub-industry portion of the S&P Total Markets Index. The S&P TMI tracks all the US common stocks listed on the NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ National Market and NASDAQ Small Cap exchanges. The Oil & Gas Exploration Index is a modified equal weight 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%.
The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 2.47%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
ETFs offer diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk, but it is still important to delve into a fund’s holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
For XOP, it has heaviest allocation in the Energy sector –about 99.50% of the portfolio.
Taking into account individual holdings, Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) accounts for about 2.58% of the fund’s total assets, followed by Tellurian Inc. (TELL) and Denbury Inc. (DEN).
The top 10 holdings account for about 20.67% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
The ETF has gained about 0% and is up roughly 45.23% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 01/03/2023), respectively. XOP has traded between $100.55 and $169.15 during this last 52-week period.
The fund has a beta of 1.91 and standard deviation of 57.09% for the trailing three-year period, which makes XOP a high risk choice in this particular space. With about 64 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.
Alternatives
SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF is an excellent option for investors seeking to outperform the Energy ETFs segment of the market. There are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider as well.
Invesco Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production ETF (PXE) tracks Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Intellidex Index and the iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (IEO) tracks Dow Jones U.S. Select Oil Exploration & Production Index. Invesco Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production ETF has $302.01 million in assets, iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF has $1.07 billion. PXE has an expense ratio of 0.63% and IEO charges 0.39%.
Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Energy ETFs.
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
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