FXG vs XLP

FXGDFirst Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund

XLPAState Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF

In short

FXG Most consumer staples ETFs just buy the sector by size. FXG runs a rules-based screen on growth, value and profitability, then holds roughly 40 names, a deliberately different shape cut from the same shelf. On the tape since 2007.

XLP One of the original sector funds, live since December 1998. XLP is the S&P 500's staples aisle: roughly 40 makers of soap, soda, snacks and smokes, cap-weighted, for eight basis points.

Stated mandate

FXG The fund seeks investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield of the StrataQuant® Consumer Staples Index before fees and expenses.

XLP The fund seeks to track, before expenses, the price and yield performance of the Consumer Staples Select Sector Index, representing U.S. consumer staples companies.

Why people hold it

• FXG Ranks staples stocks on growth, value and profitability rather than market size, then holds roughly 40 of them. A different portfolio shape from the cap-weighted default.ftportfolios.com
• Live since 2007 through several market cycles, and it has tracked its StrataQuant Consumer Staples Index closely.
• Plain vanilla plumbing: a 1940 Act equity fund with no leverage or derivatives in the mandate, paying distributions quarterly.

• XLP 0.08% a year against a peer-group median of 0.40%. In a slow-and-steady sector, that fee gap is one of the few things you actually control.
• Part of the first suite of sector ETFs launched in 1998, and still a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades very actively. Getting in and out is rarely the hard part.ssga.com
• Ties FSTA on fee and undercuts VDC, while holding strictly to S&P 500 members rather than a wider universe. Clean, literal exposure to the index's staples slice.ssga.com
• Among the strongest implementations in the staples cohort: broad mandate, quarterly distributions, no structural quirks buried in the wrapper.

Worth knowing

• FXG The screen costs money: 0.63% a year against a 0.40% category median, while index peers XLP, VDC and FSTA charge under a tenth of a percent.
• Thinly traded next to the sector's giants, so bid-ask spreads and limit orders matter more here.
• A concentrated screened basket can move well away from the standard staples benchmark, in either direction.

• XLP About 40 names, market-cap weighted with index caps applied for diversification. The biggest retailers and household-product giants still carry outsized weight.spglobal.com
• U.S. only. Foreign staples heavyweights sit outside the mandate; KXI casts a global net, and RSPS spreads weight evenly instead of by size.
• This is one slice of the S&P 500, not a diversified core. Staples run on their own cycle and can drift far from the broad market for long stretches.

Full FXG profile⁠

Full XLP profile⁠