A sound investment process and strong management team underpin SPDR® FTSE Intl Govt Infl-Protd Bd ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's effective investment philosophy supports a High Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant underweight position in corporate bonds and an overweight in AA rated bonds compared with category peers. 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

SPDR® FTSE Intl Govt Infl-Protd Bd ETF earns a High Process Pillar rating. 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. The main contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 67% also bolsters the process. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Their commendable success ratio suggests that the firm does well for investors and that this fund may benefit from that. Noteworthy risk-adjusted performance also strengthens the process, as shown by the fund's five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests the process was successful over that period.

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 price and yield performance of the FTSE International Inflation-Linked Securities Select Index.  The fund generally invests substantially all, but at least 80%, and of its total assets in the securities comprising the index and in securities that the Adviser determines have economic characteristics. The index is designed to measure the total return performance of inflation-linked bonds outside the United States with fixed-rate coupon payments that are linked to an inflation index. It is non-diversified.  

 This strategy has a 7.6% 12-month yield, higher than its average peer's 2.9%. Plus, its 30-day SEC yield (a measure similar to yield-to-maturity) sits at 1.5%. Typically, higher yields come at the cost of higher credit risk. But that isn't always the case. Over the past 12 months, the average yield of the fund has been higher than the average yield of its Morningstar Category peers. The portfolio's average surveyed credit quality is on par with peers, with both the fund and the average being rated BBB. In terms of interest-rate risk, compared with others in the Global Bond category, this fund maintains a significantly elevated average effective duration of 9.5 years compared to the category's 6.2 years. The longer a strategy's duration, the more sensitive it is to shifts in interest rates. This fund, with a 9.5-year duration, is expected to gain 9.5% of its net asset value if interest rates drop by 1 percentage point, and vice versa.

High

Process

SPDR® FTSE Intl Govt Infl-Protd Bd ETF benefits considerably from its fixed income team, earning it an Above Average People Pillar rating. There are two managers listed on the fund: James Kramer, Cynthia Moy. Experience on the team is abundant, with 11 years of average portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of three strategies, with a Silver asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their potential 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 FTSE International Government Inflation-Protected Bond ETF

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