Strength in SPDR® Blackstone High Income ETF's Process Pillar is partially offset by an Average People Pillar rating, leading to a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the second-lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's sensible investment philosophy earns an Above Average Process 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

Morningstar's style-agnostic investment process evaluation looks for strategies that should be able to outperform their Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over time. SPDR® Blackstone High Income ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.    The main driver of the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 57%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and outperformed their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. The parent firm's excellent risk-adjusted performance, as shown by its average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.2 stars, also influences the rating. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year retention rate of 75%, which suggests it could do more to retain its portfolio managers.

 The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is as follows: 


The investment seeks to provide risk-adjusted total return and high current income.  Under normal circumstances, the Sub-Adviser will invest the fund's assets primarily in U.S. dollar denominated high yield debt securities. High yield debt securities include high yield corporate bonds, and senior loans and debt tranches of U.S. collateralized loan obligations (“CLOs”). The fund will invest in CLOs to gain indirect exposure to senior loans. It may invest in debt securities of any maturity. The fund may invest up to 100% of its net assets in either high yield corporate bonds or senior loans. It is non-diversified.

 This strategy's 12-month yield is 8.0%, higher than its average peer's 6.3%. In addition, it has a 7.1% 30-day SEC yield (a standardized, point-in-time estimate of the fund’s future income return). Typically, higher yields come at the cost of higher credit risk.

Above Average

Process

SPDR® Blackstone High Income ETF earns an Average People Pillar rating. Paul Harrison, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, provides strong guidance, bringing forward 17 years of listed portfolio management experience.  The team boasts an experienced corps of listed portfolio managers, with four others supporting Paul Harrison. Together, they average 12 years of listed portfolio management experience.  The highest personal investment in the fund by any of its managers is between $100,000 and $500,000. That's on the low side--it would need to be more than $1 million for us to see the investment as sufficient to promote the strong alignment of their interests with the strategy's investors. 

 Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. The longest-tenured manager of the fund also manages a different product rated by an analyst. Their analyst-assigned People Pillar rating is combined here with the People scores (algorithmic or analyst-assigned) for the fund’s other managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

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 R Blackstone High Income ETF

HYBL seeks to provide risk-adjusted total return and high current income through an actively managed portfolio of USD-denominated high yield corporate bonds, senior loans, and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) of any maturity.

BlackRock and Blackstone are separate companies with different offerings, with BlackRock focusing on ETFs and traditional investments and Blackstone specializing in alternative assets. The SPDR Blackstone High Income ETF is an actively managed fund that aims to provide high risk-adjusted returns with less volatility. HYBL has a unique composition, including high-yield corporate bonds, senior loans, and debt tranches of US collateralized loan obligations, with a lower duration and even distribution across ratings buckets.

HYBL: Rare High-Yield Fund From Blackstone, 8% Yield

SPDR Blackstone High Income ETF is an actively managed high-yield debt fund with a distribution yield of 7.67% and an expense ratio of 0.70%. The fund focuses on risk-adjusted total return and high current income, investing in high yield debt securities, including corporate bonds, senior loans, and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). HYBL has performed well compared to its peers, but the historical data is too short to determine how it will manage the risks associated with its underlying asset classes.

HYBL: A High Yield Debt ETF Performing Well Relative To Peers

SPDR Blackstone High Income ETF (HYBL) aims to generate high income from leveraged loans, high-yield bonds, and CLO debt tranches. The HYBL inexplicably compares itself against the AGG Index, making it appear to be an outperforming fund. Measured against the appropriate underlying asset classes, HYBL has underperformed. Although the HYBL ETF pays an attractive 7.1% distribution yield, investors should be mindful of rising defaults within the high-yield space that could detract from total returns.

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