JETS vs XTN

JETSCU.S. Global Jets ETF

XTNBState Street SPDR S&P Transportation ETF

In short

JETS Airlines, straight up. Where its transport-fund peers spread across rails and truckers, JETS buys the carriers, the plane makers and the airports, weighting the four largest U.S. airlines heaviest. Live since 2015.

XTN Transportation, sliced evenly. XTN spreads roughly 40 airlines, truckers, railroads and freight names across a modified equal-weight index, so small caps get a real vote instead of a rounding error.

Stated mandate

JETS The Fund seeks to track the performance of the U.S. Global Jets Index before fees and expenses.

XTN The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return performance of the S&P Transportation Select Industry Index.

Why people hold it

• JETS A tiered index rather than pure market cap: the four largest U.S. carriers get the fattest slices, then smaller airlines, manufacturers and airports step down from there.usglobaletfs.com
• Global by design. The index screens airline companies listed on exchanges worldwide, so non-U.S. carriers and airport operators sit alongside the big domestic names.usglobaletfs.com
• Reconstituted and rebalanced every March, June, September and December, so weights snap back to the rulebook instead of riding whichever airline just ran.usglobaletfs.comsec.gov
• Actively traded for a niche sector fund, which makes it one of the easier ways to step in and out of this corner of the market.

• XTN Cheapest fare in the transportation aisle: 0.35% a year, against a 0.60% median for the peer group and 0.38% for the larger rival IYT.
• Modified equal weighting spreads the pot across air freight, airlines, airport services, highways and rail, marine, ports, railroads and trucking, not just two megacaps.ssga.com
• State Street has run it since 2011, and it sits in the upper half of its transportation peer group. Pays out quarterly.

Worth knowing

• JETS The 0.60% fee matches the category median but runs well above broad-transport options like XTN (0.35%) and IYT (0.38%), which own railroads and truckers too.
• One industry, roughly 40 stocks, top tier deliberately oversized. Moves can be sharp and can look nothing like the broad market.usglobaletfs.com
• Cash comes back once or twice a year, not quarterly or monthly.

• XTN Equal weighting tilts toward smaller, more cyclical carriers, so the ride is bumpier than a cap-weighted transport fund's.ssga.com
• About 40 stocks in one slice of industrials. Fuel costs, freight rates and the economic cycle drive it, with no cushion from other sectors.
• Moderately traded rather than heavily, so spreads can widen in fast markets.

Full JETS profile⁠

Full XTN profile⁠