The State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) is the investment management division of State Street Corporation and is the world’s largest institutional asset manager. It invented the SPDR ETF in 1993.
State Street Corporation’s aim of global expansion led them to create SSgA in 1990. This division started working from London and, between 1994 and 2006, SSgA spread its centers to:
Brussels
Hong Kong
Toronto
Paris
Sydney
Tokyo
Dubai
San Francisco
Montreal
Atlanta
Munich
Zürich
Santiago
Singapore
Chicago
Milan
Melbourne
The name SPDR came from the first ETF that SSgA invented, ‘Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts.’ This ETF was launched on January 29, 1993. It went on to becoming the biggest ETF in the US and has been designed to follow the S&P 500 index. These funds operate as unit investment trusts, offering a fixed portfolio of securities with a fixed life.
After the success of SPDR, SSgA re-branded all its other ETFs as SPDRs. This included the ‘StreetTRACKS’ ETFs and Dow Diamonds, which tracked the Dow Jones Industrial Average, another stock market index.
This move united 23 ETFs in 2007 and since then, the popularity of these SPDR ETFs has risen manifolds.
SPDR ETFs have been classified into various classes on the basis of:
Sectors
Commodities
Regions
The various SPDR ETFs are:
SPDRs "spiders"
SPDR Gold Shares
Financial Select Sector SPDR
MidCap SPDRs
Energy Select Sector SPDR
Technology Select Sector SPDR
Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR
Health Care Select Sector SPDR
Utilities Select Sector SPDR
Industrial Select Sector SPDR
SSgA launched three SPDR branded ETFs in Australia as well. These were:
S&P/ASX 50 Fund (50 top market cap stocks) SFY
S&P/ASX 200 Fund (200 top market cap stocks) STW
S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT Property Fund (200 Listed Property Fund)
SSgA launched other SPDR ETFs in other countries. All these SPDR ETFs can be bought as simply as normal ETFs.