Wealthy PotSPY vs SPYG: SPYG Is the Growth Half of SPY, at Under Half the Fee
SPY owns the whole S&P 500. SPYG owns only the part S&P classifies as growth, about 150 companies, so every SPYG stock is already inside SPY. Using the funds' 30 June 2026 holdings, the overlap is 66.3%. S&P splits the index roughly half into growth and half into value, but many large companies sit partly on both sides, so the companies SPYG holds make up about two-thirds of the S&P 500 by value. The cost runs the opposite way to what many expect. The narrower fund is cheaper: SPYG charges 0.04%, SPY 0.0945%. Over the ten years to 30 June 2026, SPYG returned 18.06% a year and SPY 15.35%. That gap is growth stocks beating value stocks over one decade, and it comes with 59% of SPYG's money in ten companies.
Table of Contents
The Short Answer
- Overlap: 66.3%. All 145 SPYG holdings in its June 2026 filing were S&P 500 members, and those companies were 67.7% of the index by weight, because S&P splits some large companies between growth and value.
- Fees: SPY 0.0945%, SPYG 0.04%. $9.45 against $4 a year on $10,000.
- Holdings: 505 vs 151 (1 October 2026).
- Top ten: 37.8% vs 59.1% of the fund at 30 June 2026. On 1 October 2026 NVIDIA alone was 15.13% of SPYG and 8.45% of SPY.
- Ten-year return to 30 June 2026: SPYG 18.06%, SPY 15.35% a year at NAV, from State Street's own pages. SPYG also led over one, three and five years to that date.
- Yield: 0.96% vs 0.45% (30-day SEC yield, 1 October 2026).
- SPYG's index may change. S&P has consulted on dropping price momentum from its growth rules; no result had been announced on 5 October 2026.
How Much of SPY Is Already SPYG
SPYG's fact sheet describes its index as "those stocks in the S&P 500 Index exhibiting the strongest growth characteristics based on: (i) sales growth; (ii) earnings change to price; and (iii) momentum." It draws only from the S&P 500, so it cannot hold anything SPY does not. The question is how much of SPY it covers.
| Portfolios at 30 June 2026 | Result |
|---|---|
| SPYG holdings that are S&P 500 members | 145 of 145 |
| Share of the S&P 500's weight in companies SPYG holds | 67.7% |
| Overlap (sum of the smaller weight in each shared stock) | 66.3% |
| S&P 500 companies SPYG did not hold | 355, or 32.1% of the index |
Why 67.7% and not 50%? S&P's methodology says its style indexes "divide the complete FMC of each underlying index approximately equally into growth and value indices." It ranks companies on growth and value scores, assigns the top 33% of index market value wholly to growth and the bottom 33% wholly to value, and says the "middle 34% of FMC consists of companies with similar growth and value ranks. Their FMC is distributed among the Style indices." So a company in that middle band can be partly in SPYG and partly in the value index. Counting every company SPYG holds at least some of, you reach 67.7% of the S&P 500, even though only about half of the index's value is assigned to growth. The overlap is a little lower than 67.7% because SPYG holds the split companies at less than their full S&P weight.
Apple is the clearest example. At 30 June 2026 Apple was 6.58% of the S&P 500 but only 5.99% of SPYG, even though SPYG covers only about half the index. A company classed entirely as growth sits at about 1.8 times its S&P weight in SPYG: NVIDIA was 7.51% of the S&P 500 and 13.65% of SPYG. Apple at 0.9 times, and Amazon at about the same, fits the pattern of a company whose market value S&P split between its growth and value indexes. That is our reading of the weights; S&P does not publish a per-company split.
What SPY adds. The largest S&P 500 companies SPYG did not hold were Intel (1.02% of the index), Exxon Mobil (0.88%), Walmart (0.77%), Costco (0.64%), UnitedHealth (0.58%), Bank of America (0.58%), Home Depot (0.54%), Procter & Gamble (0.53%), Merck (0.49%) and Chevron (0.48%). Energy, consumer staples, banks and healthcare make up most of that list.
SPY vs SPYG Side by Side
| SPY | SPYG | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust | State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Growth ETF |
| Index | S&P 500 | S&P 500 Growth Index |
| Expense ratio | 0.0945% | 0.04% |
| Annual cost on $10,000 | $9.45 | $4.00 |
| Holdings (1 Oct 2026) | 505 | 151 |
| Top-10 weight (30 Jun 2026) | 37.83% | 59.06% |
| Information technology, GICS (1 Oct 2026) | 39.93% | 54.39% |
| Assets (2 Oct 2026) | $815.3 billion | $57.3 billion |
| 30-day SEC yield (1 Oct 2026) | 0.96% | 0.45% |
| 30-day median bid/ask spread | 0.00% | 0.01% |
| Listed options | Yes | No |
| Legal form | Unit investment trust | Open-end ETF, series of SPDR Series Trust |
| Replication | Holds the index stocks | Sampling permitted |
| Portfolio turnover | not compared | 22% (latest fiscal year in prospectus) |
| Listed | 22 Jan 1993 | 25 Sep 2000 |
The cheaper fund is the narrower one. SPY's prospectus says its expenses are "currently being accrued at an annual rate of 0.0945%." SPYG's fee table shows 0.04%. If you want the whole S&P 500 at a low fee, State Street's own SPYM charges 0.02%; see SPY vs SPYM.
Why SPY still charges that price. SPY has traded since January 1993, has a listed options market (State Street's page lists none for SPYG) and a 30-day median spread that rounds to 0.00%. Those features matter to traders and institutions. A buy-and-hold investor pays for them without using them.
The structures differ. SPY is a unit investment trust; its prospectus says the Trust is not authorized to "lend its portfolio securities". SPYG is an ordinary open-end fund that may sample its index. Neither feature has shown up as a large tracking difference: over ten years to 30 June 2026 SPY trailed the S&P 500 by 0.16 points a year and SPYG trailed its index by 0.08.
What Removing the Value Stocks Does
| Weight in the fund, 30 June 2026 | S&P 500 (SPY) | SPYG |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | 7.51% | 13.65% |
| Alphabet (both classes) | 5.83% | 10.61% |
| Microsoft | 4.29% | 7.80% |
| Apple | 6.58% | 5.99% |
| Broadcom | 2.77% | 5.04% |
| Micron Technology | 2.02% | 3.67% |
| Ten largest companies | 37.83% | 59.06% |
| 25 largest | 51.75% | 77.86% |
| 50 largest | 63.42% | 88.89% |
Assigning only about half of the index's value to growth pushes the weight of a fully growth-classified company up to roughly 1.8 times its S&P weight. Sector weights show the same thing on State Street's GICS classification at 1 October 2026: information technology was 54.39% of SPYG against 39.93% of SPY, and communication services 15.23% against 9.81%. SPYG's sector list had no energy line at all; SPY held 3.45% in energy.
The prospectuses show what that means in a bad quarter, over slightly different record periods. SPYG's worst quarter to the end of 2024 was a 20.82% loss in the second quarter of 2022. SPY's worst to the end of 2025 was a 19.60% loss in the first quarter of 2020.
Returns From the Same Issuer, Same Dates
State Street publishes both funds' returns on the same dates, so these tables need no date caveat.
| Annualized NAV return, to 30 Jun 2026 | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPY | 22.15% | 20.46% | 13.26% | 15.35% |
| S&P 500 | 22.32 | 20.61 | 13.41 | 15.51 |
| SPYG | 25.66% | 25.87% | 14.52% | 18.06% |
| S&P 500 Growth | 25.71 | 25.93 | 14.57 | 18.14 |
| SPYG minus SPY | +3.51 | +5.41 | +1.26 | +2.71 |
| Annualized NAV return, to 31 Aug 2026 | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPY | 20.21% | 20.89% | 12.65% | 15.22% |
| SPYG | 22.25% | 25.47% | 13.07% | 17.73% |
| SPYG minus SPY | +2.04 | +4.58 | +0.42 | +2.51 |
Growth led over every window shown, but look at the five-year column: by August 2026 the lead was under half a point a year, because 2022's growth sell-off sits inside that window. The ten-year lead of about two and a half points a year is the one most comparisons quote, and it describes a decade in which a few technology companies grew enormous. It does not tell you what the next one holds.
Taxes have favoured SPYG. State Street's after-tax figures for the ten years to 30 June 2026 show SPY losing 0.44 points a year to taxes on distributions and SPYG 0.32, consistent with SPYG's lower yield. That applies only in a taxable account.
| Hypothetical $10,000 held for 10 years | Ending value |
|---|---|
| At SPY's 10-year NAV return to 30 Jun 2026 (15.35%) | $41,704 |
| At SPYG's 10-year NAV return to 30 Jun 2026 (18.06%) | $52,605 |
This is educational information, not personalized investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and all investing carries the risk of loss.
The Growth Rules May Change in December
On 28 August 2026 S&P Dow Jones Indices opened a consultation on the factors behind its US style indexes, including the S&P 500 Growth Index SPYG tracks. The proposal includes dropping 12-month price momentum, one of the three growth factors in the fact sheet quote above, with a proposed effective date of 21 December 2026. S&P DJI's consultations page listed it as closed on 25 September 2026, and no result had been announced when we checked on 5 October 2026.
If it is adopted, SPYG's holdings will change at a rebalance even though nothing about the fund's fee or structure does. SPY is unaffected: the S&P 500 itself is not a style index. We cover the proposal in more detail in VOOG vs VUG, since Vanguard's VOOG tracks the same growth index.
Which One Fits You
Buying one fund to hold for decades? If you want the whole S&P 500, a 0.02% to 0.03% fund such as SPYM, VOO or IVV does SPY's job for a third or less of the cost (see SPY vs VOO). If you want only the growth side, SPYG does it for 0.04%.
Choose SPYG if you deliberately want to tilt toward growth and can hold through a 2022-style drawdown. Remember it is 59% in ten companies and has almost no energy, staples or utilities.
Choose SPY if you trade actively, use options, or need the deepest liquidity in the market. That is what its fee buys.
Holding both is a tilt, not diversification. SPYG is entirely inside SPY. A SPY plus SPYG portfolio is simply the S&P 500 with extra weight on its largest growth names.
Taxable account, existing position? Selling a long-held SPY position to buy something cheaper realizes a gain. Many investors redirect new money instead; check your 2026 tax bracket first. In an IRA or 401(k) there is no tax cost to switching, so the fee gap becomes the deciding factor.
Other growth options: Vanguard's version of the same index is compared in VOO vs VOOG; a growth fund built on a different index is weighed in SCHG vs SPYG.
Sources & Methodology
- SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, Form 485BPOS filed 26 January 2026: the 0.0945% expense accrual, the fee waiver to 1 February 2027, the unit investment trust structure and best and worst quarters.
- SPYG summary prospectus, 31 October 2025: fee table and cost example, sampling strategy, 22% turnover, and best and worst quarters.
- State Street SPY page and State Street SPYG page: holdings, assets, yields, spreads, sectors, options availability and returns to 30 June and 31 August 2026, read 5 October 2026.
- SPYG fact sheet, 30 June 2026: the index definition and benchmark history.
- SPYG Form N-PORT, 30 June 2026 and IVV Form N-PORT, 30 June 2026: the holdings behind the overlap and concentration tables.
- S&P DJI consultations page and the 28 August 2026 style consultation: the proposed growth-factor change and its status.
How the overlap was computed. For each stock held by both portfolios we took the smaller of the two weights and summed them, the method the Portfolio Overlap Checker uses. SPY files no N-PORT, so the S&P 500 weights come from IVV's filing for the same date. Both filings are dated 30 June 2026.
What we did not verify. S&P does not publish how each company is split between its growth and value indexes, so the Apple and Amazon explanation is our inference from the weights. We did not extract SPY's portfolio turnover, so turnover is not compared. The consultation outcome was not public on 5 October 2026.
This article is for general education and is not investment, tax or legal advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results, index returns cannot be invested in directly, and all investing carries the risk of loss. Figures were checked against the sources above on 5 October 2026; confirm current data with State Street before acting.
FAQ: SPY vs SPYG
Is SPY or SPYG better?
For a buy-and-hold investor who wants growth, SPYG is cheaper at 0.04% against 0.0945% and returned 18.06% a year over the ten years to 30 June 2026 against 15.35% for SPY. But it is a narrower, more concentrated fund. For the whole S&P 500, a lower-cost S&P 500 fund beats SPY on fee.
How much do SPY and SPYG overlap?
66.3% at 30 June 2026. Every SPYG stock is an S&P 500 member, and SPYG's companies make up 67.7% of the index by weight.
Should I own both SPY and SPYG?
Only as a deliberate growth tilt. SPYG adds no companies SPY lacks; it adds weight to the ones it already has.
Why is SPYG cheaper than SPY?
SPYG is part of State Street's low-cost Portfolio range, with a 0.04% fee table. SPY's expenses are accrued at 0.0945%. SPY's fee pays for a structure and market built for trading, with listed options and very tight spreads.
How many stocks does SPYG hold?
151 on 1 October 2026, against 505 for SPY. The S&P 500 Growth Index has no fixed count, because S&P assigns a share of index market value to growth rather than a set number of companies.
Does SPYG pay dividends?
Yes, quarterly, but less: its 30-day SEC yield was 0.45% on 1 October 2026 against 0.96% for SPY.
Is SPYG the same as VOOG?
They track the same S&P 500 Growth Index. SPYG charges 0.04%; Vanguard's VOOG prospectus shows 0.07%. See VOO vs VOOG for the Vanguard version.
Cite This Page
Journalists, educators and bloggers are welcome to cite this comparison. Please link back so readers can reach the underlying filings.
"SPY vs SPYG: SPYG Is the Growth Half of SPY, at Under Half the Fee." Wealthy Pot, 2026. https://wealthypot.com/spy-vs-spyg/
Related comparisons: VOO vs VOOG · VOOG vs VUG · SPY vs VOO · SPY vs SPYM · SPY vs VTI · IVV vs SPY · All ETF comparisons
