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Should State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF (SPMD) Be on Your Investing Radar?

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Looking for broad exposure to the Mid Cap Blend segment of the US equity market? You should consider the State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF (SPMD - Free Report) , a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on November 8, 2005.

The fund is sponsored by State Street Investment Management. It has amassed assets over $18.23 billion, making it one of the larger ETFs attempting to match the Mid Cap Blend segment of the US equity market.

Why Mid Cap Blend

Mid cap companies, with market capitalization in the range of $2 billion and $10 billion, offer investors many things that small and large companies don't, including less risk and higher growth opportunities. These types of companies, then, have a good balance of stability and growth potential.

Typically holding a combination of both growth and value stocks, blend ETFs also demonstrate qualities seen in value and growth investments.

Costs

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.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.03%, making it the least expensive products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.31%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation to the Industrials sector -- about 23.4% of the portfolio. Information Technology and Financials round out the top three.

Looking at individual holdings, Twilio Inc A (TWLO) accounts for about 0.98% of total assets, followed by Illumina Inc (ILMN) and Technipfmc Plc (FTI).

The top 10 holdings account for about 7.9% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

SPMD seeks to match the performance of the S&P 1000 Index before fees and expenses. The S&P MidCap 400 Index combines the S&P MidCap 400 and the S&P SmallCap 600 to form an investable benchmark for the mid to small cap segment of the U.S. equity market.

The ETF has gained about 11.54% so far this year and was up about 12.4% in the last one year (as of 10/09/2026). In the past 52-week period, it has traded between $54.57 and $68.93.

The ETF has a beta of 1.02 and standard deviation of 17.54% for the trailing three-year period. With about 403 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 400 Mid Cap ETF holds a Zacks ETF Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Because of this, SPMD is an excellent option for investors seeking exposure to the Style Box - Mid Cap Blend segment of the market. There are other additional ETFs in the space that investors could consider as well.

The Vanguard Morningstar Mid-Cap ETF (VO) and the iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF (IJH) track a similar index. While Vanguard Morningstar Mid-Cap ETF has $105.94 billion in assets, iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF has $122.42 billion. VO has an expense ratio of 0.03% and IJH charges 0.05%.

Bottom-Line

An increasingly popular option among retail and institutional investors, passively managed ETFs offer low costs, transparency, flexibility, and tax efficiency; they are also excellent vehicles for long term investors.

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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