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Is State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF (XES) a Strong ETF Right Now?

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Launched on 06/19/2006, the State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF (XES - Free Report) is a smart beta exchange traded fund offering broad exposure to the Energy ETFs category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.

Investors who believe in market efficiency should consider market cap indexes, as they replicate market returns in a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way.

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.

Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other 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

Managed by State Street Investment Management, XES has amassed assets over $390.94 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Energy ETFs. Before fees and expenses, this particular fund seeks to match the performance of the S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services Select Industry Index.

The S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services Select Industry Index represents the oil and gas equipment and services sub-industry portion of the S&P Total Markets Index. The S&P TMI tracks all the U.S. common stocks listed on the NYSE, AMEX,NASDAQ National Market and NASDAQ Small Cap exchanges. The Oil & Gas Equipment Index is a modified equal weight index.

Cost & Other Expenses

Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.

Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.35% for this ETF, which makes it one of the least expensive products in the space.

It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 1.12%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Energy sector - about 100% of the portfolio.

When you look at individual holdings, Oceaneering Intl Inc (OII) accounts for about 4.8% of the fund's total assets, followed by Tidewater Inc (TDW) and Cactus Inc A (WHD).

XES's top 10 holdings account for about 41.57% of its total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

Year-to-date, the State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF has added roughly 42.87% so far, and was up about 66.55% over the last 12 months (as of 09/18/2026). XES has traded between $68.06 $133.60 in this past 52-week period.

The ETF has a beta of 0.96 and standard deviation of 33.04% for the trailing three-year period, making it a high risk choice in the space. With about 35 holdings, it has more concentrated exposure than peers .

Alternatives

State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services 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.

iShares U.S. Oil Equipment & Services ETF (IEZ) tracks Dow Jones U.S. Select Oil Equipment & Services Index and the VanEck Oil Services ETF (OIH) tracks MVIS U.S. Listed Oil Services 25 Index. iShares U.S. Oil Equipment & Services ETF has $358.27 million in assets, VanEck Oil Services ETF has $1.98 billion. IEZ has an expense ratio of 0.37% and OIH changes 0.35%.

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 Zacks ETF Center.

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