SPDR® S&P Kensho Smart Mobility ETF earns a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral with strength in areas such as People offset by weaker spots such as Process. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy gets a Below Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant overweight position in liquidity exposure and an underweight in quality exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And a low quality exposure is rooted in stocks with higher financial leverage and lower profitability. The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

Aspen Aerogels

NVIDIA

Modine Manufacturing

Allison Transmission Hlds

QUALCOMM

General Motors

Aurora Innovation

Lyft

Blue Bird

Cummins

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. SPDR® S&P Kensho Smart Mobility ETF earns a Below Average Process Pillar rating. The process is strengthened by its parent firm's impressive long-term risk-adjusted performance, as shown by the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.2 stars. However, the rating is limited by the fund's weak long-term risk-adjusted performance. This can be seen in its five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the process has struggled over that period. The parent firm's five-year retention rate of 75% also weakens the process.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks to provide investment results that, before fees and expenses, correspond generally to the total return performance of the S&P Kensho Smart Transportation Index.  Under normal market conditions, the fund generally invests substantially all, but at least 80%, and of its total assets in the securities comprising the index. The index is comprised of U.S.-listed equity securities (including depositary receipts) of companies domiciled across developed and emerging markets worldwide which are included in the Smart Transportation sector as determined by a classification standard produced by the index provider. 

 The portfolio is overweight in consumer cyclical and industrials relative to the category average by 31.5 and 22.6 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are technology and communication services, underweight the average by 42.3 and 8.5 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 80 holdings and is diversified among those holdings. In its most recent portfolio, 20.7% of the portfolio's assets were concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category average's 52.4%. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 33% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Below Average

Process

State Street’s team is strong compared with others in the industry, resulting in an Above Average People Pillar rating. There are two managers listed on the fund: Mark Krivitsky, Kathleen Morgan. Together, they manage a total of two strategies, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Silver asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

Above Average

People

State Street Global Advisors is under new leadership but continues to move along the positive trajectory established by former leaders. SSGA maintains its Above Average Parent Pillar rating.
Cyrus Taraporevala, who oversaw much of SSGA’s recent transformation, retired from the CEO position in December 2022 and passed the baton to his successor, Yie-Hsin Hung. She inherited a business that’s become more disciplined with its fund lineup. Fees have come down, while product development remains focused on fixed-income and sustainability funds, and many of SSGA’s launches have echoed that intention.
The seeds that SSGA planted over the past several years have been bearing fruit. It built out a low-cost series of portfolio building-block ETFs in the U.S. bearing the “SPDR Portfolio” branding. SSGA launched these later than its industry rivals, so they aren’t as large. But they’re competitive, with solid management and low fees, which helped them consistently take in new money over the past several years.
SSGA continued to overhaul its ETF business in Europe with most of its recent fixed-income and sustainability fund launches. Many of these funds track indexes and charge relatively low fees. With operations in the U.S. and Europe standing on a firm foundation, SSGA will put more focus on its Asia-Pacific business—the smallest regional segment of its business.

Parent

SPDR S&P Kensho Smart Mobility ETF

HAIL tracks an index of US-listed companies that focuses on autonomous vehicle technology, drone technology, and advanced transportation tracking and transport optimization systems.