GTEK vs XLK

GTEKDGoldman Sachs Future Tech Leaders Equity ETF

XLKAState Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF

In short

GTEK Most tech funds are a bet on the same handful of giants. GTEK does the opposite: Goldman's stock pickers hunt tech companies worth under $100 billion, anywhere in the world, in a portfolio of roughly 60 names.

XLK A 1998 original: XLK owns the technology slice of the S&P 500, about 70 names, for eight basis points. Big, heavily traded, and top-heavy by design, with quarterly caps the only brake on the giants at the top.

Stated mandate

GTEK The fund is an actively managed, fully transparent ETF seeking exposure to Goldman Sachs's highest-conviction technology ideas. It invests globally in companies below $100 billion in market capitalization, including mid- and small-cap stocks.

XLK The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Technology Select Sector Index before expenses.

Why people hold it

• GTEK The size cap is the point: it buys tech companies below $100 billion in market value, so the mega-caps that anchor most tech funds are excluded by design.gsam.com
• It fishes globally across developed and emerging markets, so the shortlist reaches chipmakers and software names listed well outside the US.
• Actively managed and fully transparent, holding about 60 stocks. You see what Goldman's analysts actually picked rather than an index screen's output.

• XLK Costs 0.08% a year against a roughly 0.40% median for broad tech funds, tying FTEC as the cheapest of the category's top-rated names and undercutting VGT's 0.09%.
• One of the largest and most actively traded funds in the tech aisle, so entering or exiting rarely means fighting the order book.
• Running since December 1998 and dead simple: the tech sector of the S&P 500, spanning software, semiconductors, hardware, communications equipment and IT services. Pays quarterly.ssga.com

Worth knowing

• GTEK At 0.75% a year, it charges more than the typical global active equity fund, and well above rules-based peers such as GSWO at 0.15%.
• It trades thinly next to the big tech funds, so bid-ask gaps can run wider, particularly around the open and close.
• Sub-$100B, one sector, roughly 60 holdings: a concentrated slice of the market, and it has not been run as an income payer.

• XLK Top-heavy by construction. About 70 stocks, and the index only trims its biggest weights at quarterly rebalances to stay inside fund diversification limits.spglobal.com
• The universe is S&P 500 tech only. Smaller tech companies outside the big index are out, and the Select Sector funds split the S&P 500 up, so some familiar names sit in other sector funds.ssga.com
• It is one sector with no ballast from the rest of the market, so a tech drawdown lands here in full.

Full GTEK profile⁠

Full XLK profile⁠