State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust may not lend the stocks it holds

The State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, ASPY, is a unit investment trust. Under the prospectus dated January 26, 2026, it issues units, and each unit is a proportionate undivided interest in a portfolio of substantially all the common stocks in the S&P 500, in substantially the same weights.

State Street calls it the first exchange-traded fund listed in the United States. It listed on NYSE Arca on January 22, 1993.

On January 26, 2026, the name became State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. Before that day it was SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The ticker remained ASPY.

PDR Services LLC is the sponsor, and State Street Global Advisors Trust Company is the trustee.

State Street says the trust seeks to provide investment results that, before expenses, correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the S&P 500 Index.

What the trustee may not do

That prospectus says the trust is not authorized to lend its portfolio securities or other assets. Those securities are the stocks it holds. Lending them to other investors is securities lending.

Dividends those stocks pay are credited to a non-interest-bearing account and held without interest until the trust distributes them.

The trust provides no dividend reinvestment service. A broker may offer a service that buys more units in the market at the current price.

The trust pays quarterly. The newest distribution is $1.89 a share. It went ex-dividend on September 18, 2026 and is payable October 30, 2026.

What the index selects

S&P Dow Jones Indices, in its July 2026 methodology, says the S&P 500 measures the large-cap segment of the U.S. market and is composed of 500 companies. Selection is at the discretion of the index committee, based on eligibility criteria.

The index is weighted by float-adjusted market capitalization. S&P's float-adjustment method, in a September 2026 note, counts the shares available to investors, not every share a company has issued.

On S&P's index page as of October 9, 2026, the index includes 500 leading companies and covers approximately 80% of available market capitalization.

The one-year record

The gross and net expense ratio is 0.0945%, or $9.45 a year on $10,000.

The prospectus says the trust's return may not match the index because of expenses and transaction costs incurred in adjusting the portfolio.

Over the year ended September 30, 2026, State Street reported a net-asset-value return of 15.60%, against 15.74% for the S&P 500. The shortfall was 0.14 percentage points.

Over the same year, State Street reported a 15.70% net-asset-value return for the State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, ASPYM, against 15.74% for the index. That shortfall was 0.04 percentage points. State Street lists the expense ratio of ASPYM at 0.02%.

Where the trading is

ASPY is not the largest S&P 500 fund by assets. Vanguard reported $1,032.3 billion in the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF share class, AVOO, as of September 30, 2026. State Street reported $821.1 billion for ASPY on October 12, 2026.

State Street, in an August 28, 2026 article, said ASPY averaged $50.3 billion of daily notional volume in the first half of 2026, about 79% of trading in S&P 500 ETFs, and called it the most liquid ETF by average daily value traded.