Jul 11th, 2009
What’s in My Portfolio: Rydex ETF Trust S&P 500 Equal Weighted Index
Here it is: the final part of my portfolio (wow, this has taken a long time!). This is another exchange traded fund and it’s an index that follows the S&P 500, but it’s not from Vanguard and it’s not what you might expect: it’s the Rydex ETF Trust S&P 500 Equal Weighted Index (RSP).
Most indices are “weighted”, meaning that even though they own a little of all of the stocks in the index, it owns more of some than others based on market cap. Equal weight indices vary from the weighting system. Sometimes it does better than others; this year it’s not doing better (down 10.31% year to date versus the close to breakeven performance of the S&P 500). It’s held in my Roth IRA so I’m not concerned about taxes at this point; it pays a small 2.07% dividend yield as well. It has a decent but not great 0.4% expense ratio.
I’m not sure how long I’m keeping this fund; it only makes up 0.2% of my total portfolio so I’m not concerned about exposure. However, compared to the index, the costs are higher and the current performance pales badly in comparison. There’s no way I would suggest this fund over a plain and simple index fund, although it could be an adjunct.
And that’s the final part of my portfolio! Thanks for letting me do this series for you!
