FDIS vs XHB

FDISBFidelity MSCI Consumer Discretionary Index ETF

XHBCState Street SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF

In short

FDIS Cheap and wide. FDIS holds about 300 US consumer discretionary stocks rather than the sector's mega-cap handful, and charges 0.08% while the typical fund in its peer group asks roughly four times that.

XHB The original housing ETF, trading since 2006, and it never stayed in its lane: builders sit alongside building products, furnishings, appliances and home improvement retail, weighted so the small names count too.

Stated mandate

FDIS The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the MSCI USA IMI Consumer Discretionary 25/50 Index.

XHB The fund seeks to track the total return of the S&P Homebuilders Select Industry Index, an index derived from the homebuilding segment of a U.S. total-market composite index.

Why people hold it

• FDIS 0.08% a year, level with the cheapest large fund in the group (XLY) and a fraction of the roughly 0.35% cohort median.
• About 300 holdings: the MSCI USA IMI Consumer Discretionary 25/50 Index reaches past the mega caps into mid and small caps.
• Tracks that index closely, one of the stronger implementations among the 17 funds in its consumer discretionary group.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund from Fidelity, trading since 2013, that pays distributions quarterly.

• XHB Buys the whole house, not just the builder: the index reaches into Building Products, Home Furnishings, Home Improvement Retail and Household Appliances alongside homebuilders.ssga.com
• Modified equal weighting spreads roughly 30 holdings across large, mid and small caps, so no single mega-builder sets the tone.ssga.com
• Launched in January 2006, it has run through a housing bust and the rebuild since. Today it is a multi-billion-dollar fund and an actively traded one.
• A plain index tracker with a published rulebook: no manager discretion, no derivatives overlay, just the S&P Homebuilders Select Industry Index, rebalanced on schedule.ssga.com

Worth knowing

• FDIS One sector, and a cyclical one. Returns ride on how freely US households spend, so the ride is bumpier than a total-market fund's.
• The 25/50 rules cap how large any single position gets, but this is still a concentrated slice of the US market.
• Moderately traded rather than the category's busiest ticker. Limit orders are the sensible habit, especially in size.

• XHB The 0.35% fee is the median for its consumer discretionary peer group, but broad sector funds like XLY, FDIS and VCR charge under a tenth of a percent. Niche costs more.
• About 30 US stocks in one mortgage-rate-sensitive corner of the economy. Moves here tend to be sharper than a whole-sector fund's.
• Equal weighting cuts both ways: when the largest builders dominate the industry's move, a portfolio that deliberately tilts away from them tracks a different path.ssga.com

Full FDIS profile⁠

Full XHB profile⁠