ITOT vs SPTM

ITOTAiShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF

SPTMAState Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF

In short

ITOT The S&P family's answer to total-market indexing: large, mid and small U.S. stocks in one 0.03% wrapper, running since 2004. Same fee as the Vanguard and Schwab giants, a different index rulebook.

SPTM One ticker for the whole US market ladder: about 1,500 large, mid and small caps from S&P's composite index at 3 basis points. Running since 2000, at half the fee of the typical total-market rival.

Stated mandate

ITOT The fund seeks to track the performance of the S&P Composite 1500, representing U.S. stocks across market capitalizations.

SPTM The fund seeks to provide investment results that generally correspond to the total return of the S&P Composite 1500 Index, offering broad U.S. equity exposure across market capitalizations.

Why people hold it

• ITOT 0.03% a year, matching the category's biggest names (VTI, SCHB) and sitting below what the typical fund in this group charges.
• One index, no tilts: U.S. stocks across market caps in cap-weight order. The mandate it prints is the mandate it runs.
• Trading since 2004 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund with active daily volume, so spreads are rarely the story.
• Plain 1940 Act fund structure, cash paid out quarterly.

• SPTM 0.03% a year, half the 0.06% median for total-market rivals. In a category where cost is most of the argument, it sits in the cheap tier.
• One job, done plainly: large, mid and small cap US stocks in a single wrapper, about 1,500 names, no sector bets or style tilts, and it has tracked its index closely.
• Launched in 2000, so it has traded through the dot-com bust, 2008 and 2020. A multi-billion-dollar fund that changes hands actively every day.
• Stands in the upper half of its total-market peer group next to VTI, SCHB and ITOT, and matches ITOT's declared index at the same 0.03% fee.

Worth knowing

• ITOT Cap weighting puts the megacaps in the driver's seat; the long tail of smaller names is a thin slice of the basket.
• SPTM tracks the same declared index at the same 0.03% fee, so the pick comes down to platform, spreads and existing tax lots.
• All-equity and all-U.S. by design: no bonds, no foreign stocks in the wrapper.

• SPTM Liquidity is solid rather than category-leading. The largest total-market funds trade heavier, so spreads here can run a little wider on big or hurried orders.
• US only. International stocks sit outside the mandate, so global exposure has to come from somewhere else in the portfolio.
• Owning the whole US market means owning its drawdowns: no buffer, no hedge, no cash cushion. Cash comes back as a quarterly distribution.

Full ITOT profile⁠

Full SPTM profile⁠