---
title: "The best S&P 500 ETF costs 0.02%. Equal weight is a different bet"
url: "https://etf.net/news/sp-500-equal-weight-leads-2026-11-02"
published_at: "2026-11-02T17:12:12.696Z"
updated_at: "2026-11-02T17:12:12.696Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# The best S&P 500 ETF costs 0.02%. Equal weight is a different bet

Year to date through Friday, the cheap S&P 500 funds had returned 11.8%, dividends included. Equal weight was ahead by 3.5 percentage points.

By ETF.net Research. Published Nov 2, 2026.

Through Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, the cheap S&P 500 funds had returned **11.8%**, dividends included. The one to hold is State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, SPYM.

It charges **0.02%**. etf.net grades it an A in the S&P 500 category.

iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, IVV, and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, VOO, each charge 0.03%. On a $100,000 holding, the extra is $10 a year. If you already own either fund, that is not a reason to sell.

State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF, SPY, charges [0.0945%](https://www.ssga.com/us/en/intermediary/etfs/state-street-spdr-sp-500-etf-trust-spy). The extra over SPYM is about $75 a year on that same $100,000.

Use SPY to trade the index. Over the 20 sessions through Friday it traded about $29.6 billion a day, about 25 times SPYM's $1.2 billion.

Chart: **SPY** traded $29.6 billion a day

Table: Fund, Annual fee, Grade

BNY Mellon US Large Cap Core Equity ETF, BKLC, charges nothing. It tracks the Solactive GBS United States 500 Index, a different list of large U.S. companies, not the S&P 500. A zero fee does not make it the same fund.

## Total stock market ETFs

A broader fund adds the companies outside the S&P 500.

[iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF](https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239724/ishares-core-s-p-total-u-s-stock-market-etf), ITOT, tracks the S&P Total Market Index and charges 0.03%. The index covers U.S. stocks of every size.

etf.net grades it an A in the total-market category. Through Friday it had also returned 11.8%, dividends included.

Vanguard Morningstar Total Stock Market ETF, VTI, charges 0.03% to track the Morningstar US Total Market Index. At Sept. 30, 2026, the 10 largest stocks were [36.1%](https://advisors.vanguard.com/assets/corp/fund_communications/pdf_publish/us-products/fact-sheet/F0970.pdf) of the fund, against [40.6%](https://fund-docs.vanguard.com/F0968.pdf) in VOO.

Owning the whole market has not been a way out of those companies.

Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF, SCHB, charges 0.03% to track the Dow Jones U.S. Broad Stock Market Index. State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF, SPTM, tracks the S&P Composite 1500, the step between the 500 and the whole market, also at 0.03%.

If you already hold one of these broad funds, the fee is not a reason to move.

## S&P 500 equal weight

Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, RSP, is the fund that did not tie. It holds the S&P 500's companies and gives each the same weight at each quarterly rebalance, as its [prospectus](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1209466/000119312526372163/d177078d497k.htm) dated Aug. 28, 2026, describes.

Chart: Equal weight’s largest ten are **2.7%** of the fund

It charges 0.20%, which is $180 a year more than SPYM on a $100,000 holding. etf.net grades it a B in the S&P 500 category.

Through Friday its total return was **15.3%**, dividends included, against 11.8% for SPYM. The gap is **3.5 percentage points**.

Buy it only if you want each company to count the same. That lead, year to date, is not a reason to treat it as the default S&P 500 fund.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/sp-500-equal-weight-leads-2026-11-02. Please cite the page URL.