RSPS vs XLP

RSPSCInvesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Staples ETF

XLPAState Street Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR ETF

In short

RSPS Most staples ETFs are really a bet on a few giants. RSPS slices the S&P 500's staples sector into equal pieces, so a soup maker counts as much as the biggest retailer, and it resets to even every quarter.

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

RSPS The fund tracks an index that equally weights stocks in the consumer staples sector of the S&P 500® Index.

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

• RSPS Equal weighting by design: every consumer staples name in the S&P 500 gets the same slot, rebalanced back to even each quarter, so the sector's mega-caps can't run the show.invesco.com
• Running since 2006, so this equal-weight take on staples has traded through multiple market cycles, not just the last one.
• Tracks its index tightly and sits in the upper half of its consumer staples peer group on our review.
• Holds roughly 30 large staples businesses (food, drinks, tobacco, household and personal products, staples retail) and pays distributions quarterly.invesco.com

• 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

• RSPS Costs 0.40% a year, while cap-weighted staples rivals like XLP, FSTA and VDC run under a tenth of a percent. Equal weight here is a paid upgrade.
• About 30 stocks in one defensive sector, and equal weighting puts real money behind the smaller names most staples funds barely touch.
• Mid-sized and moderately traded rather than a volume monster, so spreads can be wider than at the sector's largest funds.

• 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 RSPS profile⁠

Full XLP profile⁠