RSP and SPY invest in the same S&P 500 company universe, but divide the money differently. RSP gives each company roughly the same starting weight. SPY gives the biggest companies the largest allocations. That difference changes what drives your returns.
Updated 23 October 2026. Performance is dated 22 October 2026 and top holdings 21 October 2026. Sector snapshots have different dates, shown in the table.
New to ETFs? This ETF investing guide explains the basics.
RSP vs SPY at a glance
| Feature | RSP | SPY |
|---|---|---|
| Fund | Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF | State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust |
| Benchmark | S&P 500 Equal Weight Index | S&P 500 Index |
| Weighting | Approximately 0.2% per company at quarterly resets | By float-adjusted market value |
| Annual expense ratio | 0.20% | 0.0945% |
| Approximate annual cost on US$10,000 | US$20 | US$9.45 |
| Top 10 combined, 21 October 2026 | 2.72% | 38.49% |
| Trading currency | USD | USD |
| Cash distributions | Quarterly | Quarterly |
RSP costs about US$10.55 more per year for each US$10,000 invested. The fee matters, but the larger decision is which weighting approach you want to hold through both good and disappointing years.
How equal weighting works
At each quarterly reset, RSP’s index targets approximately 0.2% per company. Prices then move, so the weights drift apart. RSP does have a top 10 between resets; its holdings are not kept exactly equal every day. See the S&P index description.
| Illustrative US$10,000 portfolio | Equal weighting | Market-cap weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Allocation to a company at 0.2% | US$20 | Depends on its index weight |
| Allocation to a company at 8% | Not the equal-weight target | US$800 |
| If that stock falls 20%, everything else unchanged | About US$4 loss at 0.2% weight | About US$160 loss at 8% weight |
SPY weights companies by the market value of shares available to investors, not by the price of one share. As large companies become more valuable relative to the rest, their influence grows.
Quarterly equal-weight rebalancing tends to trim relative winners and add to relative laggards. That creates a tilt towards smaller S&P 500 members and value, and away from price momentum. It can help when leadership broadens, but can hold the fund back when the biggest winners keep winning. Source: S&P equal-weight FAQ.
Sector allocation
Equal company weights do not mean equal sector weights. A sector with more companies generally receives more weight at the reset. The snapshots below illustrate the different exposures; their dates differ, so they are not an exact same-day comparison.
| Sector | RSP 28 August 2026 | SPY 9 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Information technology | 15.9% | 39.60% |
| Industrials | 16.1% | 7.99% |
| Financials | 14.7% | 11.45% |
| Health care | 12.7% | 9.20% |
| Consumer discretionary | 9.4% | 8.80% |
| Consumer staples | 6.6% | 4.52% |
| Utilities | 5.9% | 1.93% |
| Real estate | 5.8% | 1.69% |
| Materials | 5.1% | 1.61% |
| Energy | 4.0% | 3.52% |
| Communication services | 3.8% | 9.68% |
The difference is substantial: RSP gives industrials and financials more influence, while SPY has much more technology exposure. RSP can reduce reliance on mega-cap technology without selling out of US equities.
Top 10 holdings
| Rank | RSP | SPY |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moderna 0.36% | NVIDIA 8.04% |
| 2 | PTC 0.30% | Apple 7.51% |
| 3 | Illumina 0.27% | Microsoft 5.92% |
| 4 | Accenture 0.27% | Amazon 3.85% |
| 5 | Everpure 0.27% | Alphabet A 2.94% |
| 6 | Mettler-Toledo 0.26% | Broadcom 2.40% |
| 7 | Gartner 0.26% | Alphabet C 2.35% |
| 8 | Hasbro 0.25% | Meta Platforms A 2.30% |
| 9 | Revvity 0.25% | Tesla 1.63% |
| 10 | Charles River Laboratories 0.24% | Micron Technology 1.54% |
| Combined weight | 2.72% | 38.49% |
This is the practical appeal of RSP: a single company has much less power to move the whole fund. But spreading stock-specific risk does not remove the risk of the entire market falling. RSP still owns equities from the S&P 500 universe.
Performance over matching periods
All performance tables below use nominal USD market-price total returns with dividends reinvested. They are not inflation-adjusted or SGD returns. Multi-year returns are annualised: the compounded return per year. Trading costs and your personal taxes are not included.
| Period ending 22 October 2026 | RSP | SPY |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 year to date | 15.28% | 12.91% |
| 1 year | 16.79% | 15.63% |
| 3 years, annualised | 18.69% | 23.44% |
| 5 years, annualised | 8.39% | 12.51% |
| 10 years, annualised | 12.16% | 15.38% |
What would US$10,000 have grown to?
| Period ending 22 October 2026 | RSP | SPY |
|---|---|---|
| 3 years | US$16,720 | US$18,808 |
| 5 years | US$14,963 | US$18,026 |
| 10 years | US$31,508 | US$41,806 |
SPY led all three illustrated periods, although RSP has been ahead over the past year and in 2026 so far. That is an outcome for these particular dates, not a promise about the next decade. Comparing two funds’ separate since-inception figures would be misleading because they started at different times.
Calendar-year returns: neither fund wins every year
| Calendar year | RSP | SPY |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | -40.06% | -36.79% |
| 2018 | -7.84% | -4.57% |
| 2020 | +12.66% | +18.33% |
| 2021 | +29.41% | +28.73% |
| 2022 | -11.62% | -18.18% |
| 2023 | +13.70% | +26.18% |
| 2024 | +12.79% | +24.89% |
| 2025 | +11.21% | +17.72% |
RSP lost less in 2022, but more in 2008 and 2018. So it is not accurate to assume equal weighting always performs worse in a down market—or always protects you better. The companies and sectors driving each decline matter.
Which should you choose?
| Your priority | Approach to consider | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Follow the conventional S&P 500 | SPY | Accept greater dependence on its biggest companies. |
| Reduce concentration in the largest stocks | RSP | Accept a higher fee and possible long stretches behind SPY. |
| Moderate the concentration of an existing S&P 500 holding | A planned blend of the two | Changes weights but adds very few new companies; decide and maintain an allocation. |
| Protect money needed soon | Neither as a cash substitute | Both can suffer substantial losses. |
RSP is a diversification choice, not a guarantee of faster growth. Its smaller holdings are smaller relative to the giants in the S&P 500. That does not make it a dedicated small-cap fund or mean those companies must deliver better returns.
If you want the standard S&P 500 experience, SPY is the more direct fit. If your concern is how much of your portfolio depends on a handful of huge companies, RSP offers a straightforward way to spread that exposure. Choose a weighting approach you can stick with, rather than switching whenever the other fund takes the lead.
For Singapore investors, fund domicile, dividend withholding tax, estate-tax exposure and currency costs also deserve attention. Read which S&P 500 ETF to buy for the US-versus-Ireland comparison.
Both funds can lose money, and neither provides a complete global portfolio on its own.
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As always, remember that Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results. And none of the content that I write on this site should be taken as financial advice.
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