XLC vs XTL

XLCAState Street Communication Services Select Sector SPDR ETF

XTLCState Street SPDR S&P Telecom ETF

In short

XLC Launched in 2018, XLC bottles the communication services corner of the S&P 500: search, social, streaming and the phone companies, in one 0.08% wrapper that trades heavily all day.

XTL Telecom, not "communication services." XTL's index sticks to carriers and the equipment makers behind them, and weights them close to equally, so a small-cap gear supplier can count for as much as a national wireless giant.

Stated mandate

XLC The fund seeks to track, before expenses, the price and yield performance of the Communication Services Select Sector Index.

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

Why people hold it

• XLC Costs 0.08% a year, a fraction of the typical fund in this sector group and tied with the cheapest of them (FCOM at 0.08%, VOX at 0.09%).
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the busiest tickers in its category, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.
• Clean, rules-based job: it shadows the Communication Services Select Sector Index closely, one of the tightest implementations in its peer group.ssga.com
• Large-cap only: constituents come from the S&P 500, spanning telecom, media, entertainment and interactive media, with S&P capping rules limiting how big any one name gets.ssga.comspglobal.com

• XTL Modified equal weighting spreads about 40 names across large, mid and small caps, so no single carrier dominates the basket.ssga.com
• Pure telecom mandate: alternative carriers, communications equipment, integrated telecom and wireless. No social media or streaming riding along under a sector label.ssga.com
• The 0.35% fee sits just under the median for its communication-services peer group, and below iShares' IYZ at 0.37%.
• Live since 2011, with a record spanning multiple telecom build-out cycles and enough regular trading for ordinary retail-size orders.

Worth knowing

• XLC This is the most top-heavy neighborhood in the index. Even with capping at rebalance, a few mega-cap internet names set the tone for the whole fund.spglobal.com
• One sector out of eleven in the S&P 500, so it tracks ad budgets, subscriptions and phone bills rather than the broad market.spglobal.com
• FCOM and VOX sit within a penny of the same fee, so the real choice is index breadth: XLC stops at the S&P 500. Distributions come quarterly.ssga.com

• XTL Broad communication-services rivals XLC, FCOM and VOX charge under 0.10%. The narrower, equal-weighted build costs several times that.
• Equal weighting puts real money into small and mid cap equipment makers, so price swings tend to run wider than a mega-cap carrier basket.ssga.com
• About 40 stocks inside one industry means single-company news lands harder here. Distributions arrive quarterly.

Full XLC profile⁠

Full XTL profile⁠