AIRR vs GII

AIRRCFirst Trust RBA American Industrial RenaissanceTM ETF

GIIAState Street SPDR S&P Global Infrastructure ETF

In short

AIRR A 2014 bet on American factories from Richard Bernstein: about 60 small- and mid-cap US industrials plus the community banks that lend to them. Not toll roads and pipelines. Machine shops, truckers, Main Street lenders.

GII Toll roads, airports, pipelines and power grids in one ticker. GII has tracked the S&P Global Infrastructure Index since 2007, an early entrant in the category, and charges less than the typical infrastructure fund.

Stated mandate

AIRR The fund tracks an index of small- and mid-cap U.S. companies focused on industrial activity and community banking. The index emphasizes infrastructure, manufacturing, transportation, and related services.

GII The fund seeks to track the total return of the S&P Global Infrastructure Index. That index provides exposure to large publicly listed infrastructure companies across transportation, utilities, and energy infrastructure.

Why people hold it

• AIRR Unusual pairing: manufacturers and transport names sit next to community banks, the lenders that finance small-town factory expansion. Both sides of one idea.ftportfolios.com
• Running since 2014, well before reshoring hit headlines, on a Richard Bernstein Advisors index that has kept the fund in the same lane.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so getting in and out is typically cheap in normal markets. Pays quarterly.
• Sits in the upper half of its infrastructure peer group, with a portfolio that stays close to what its index describes.

• GII Tracks an index of 75 of the largest listed infrastructure companies, screened for float and liquidity, spread across transportation, utilities and energy infrastructure in developed and emerging markets.ssga.com
• 0.40% a year against a 0.55% median for infrastructure ETFs. The cheap end of a category that often is not cheap.
• Live since 2007, so the record covers the financial crisis, a decade of low rates and the 2022 rate shock. It rates among the strongest implementations in its infrastructure peer group.

Worth knowing

• AIRR At 0.69%, it charges more than the typical fund in its infrastructure group, and more than double index peers like IFRA at 0.30%.
• Small caps, cyclicals and regional banks all swing with the economy, and a roughly 60-stock lineup means individual names carry real weight.
• Filed under infrastructure, but it is not pipelines and airports. It can behave very differently from global infrastructure funds like IGF.

• GII IGF follows the same index for 0.37%, three basis points less. GII's own trading is moderate rather than heavy, so spreads count alongside the fee gap.
• Roughly 70 stocks across three sectors and several currencies. A focused, globally scattered book that can behave quite differently from a broad world equity fund.ssga.com
• Distributions arrive on an annual or semiannual schedule, so cash lands in lumps rather than monthly.

Full AIRR profile⁠

Full GII profile⁠