SPYM vs SPLG: They Are the Same Fund. State Street Renamed the Ticker.

If you are trying to decide between SPYM and SPLG, you can stop. They are the same fund. State Street renamed the ticker on the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF from SPLG to SPYM, effective October 31, 2025. Nothing about the fund itself changed: same S&P 500 index, same holdings, same 0.02% expense ratio, same history. Only the symbol and the display name moved.

What Actually Changed on October 31, 2025

State Street ran a rebrand across its SPDR Portfolio lineup and changed several tickers at once. For this fund, the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, the change was:

• The stock ticker went from SPLG to SPYM.
• The option symbols changed from SPLG to SPYM at the same time.
• The fund's name picked up the "State Street" prefix: State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF.

What did not change is everything that matters to a shareholder. The fund still tracks the S&P 500, still holds the same roughly 500 companies in the same market-cap weights, and still charges 0.02%. Its assets, around $175 billion, and its 2005 inception carried straight over. A ticker change is a label swap, not a fund event.

If You Owned SPLG, You Now Own SPYM

There is nothing to do. Brokerages process a ticker change automatically. Your former SPLG shares appear under SPYM now, at the same share count and the same cost basis, and no sale happened, so there is no taxable event. Investors sometimes worry a rename triggers a capital gain the way selling would. It does not.

The one housekeeping item: update anything that still points at the old symbol. A watchlist, a tracking spreadsheet, or a recurring buy order set to SPLG will not work anymore, because SPLG no longer trades. Point them at SPYM.

The Confusion Worth Clearing Up: SPYM Is Not SPY

The rename created a second, easier mix-up. The new ticker SPYM sits one letter away from SPY, the most famous ETF in the world, and they are not the same fund.

Both track the S&P 500, so their returns move together before fees. The difference is cost and structure. SPY is the original 1993 trust and charges roughly 0.09%. SPYM is the cheaper portfolio-line fund at 0.02%, close to a fifth of SPY's fee. For a buy-and-hold investor putting in new money, that gap is the only thing separating them, and it points the same way it always has: the lower fee keeps more of the return. We break the whole cheap-S&P field down in the guide to S&P 500 ETFs.

How SPYM Stacks Up Against the Other Cheap S&P 500 Funds

Now that it trades as SPYM, the fund is one of the cheapest ways to own the index, a basis point under VOO. We put the two side by side in VOO vs SPYM, and the short version is that a 0.01% fee gap is a $1-per-$10,000 difference that should not drive the decision by itself. If you want the broader map of low-cost index options, the lowest-cost ETFs guide covers where SPYM fits.

Questions People Ask

Is SPYM the same as SPLG?

Yes. They are one fund, the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF from State Street. It traded under the ticker SPLG from 2005 until October 31, 2025, when State Street renamed the ticker to SPYM as part of a broader SPDR rebrand. The index, the holdings, the 0.02% expense ratio, and the fund's history all carried over unchanged. Only the ticker symbol and the fund's display name changed.

What happened to SPLG?

SPLG was renamed, not closed or merged. Effective October 31, 2025, State Street changed the ticker from SPLG to SPYM and the fund name to State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF. The option symbols changed too, from SPLG to SPYM. If you held SPLG, your position simply appears under the SPYM ticker now. No shares were sold, no taxable event was triggered, and you did not need to do anything.

Do I need to do anything if I owned SPLG?

No. A ticker change is handled automatically by your brokerage. Your old SPLG shares now show as SPYM, at the same share count and cost basis. There is nothing to buy, sell, or transfer. The only thing to update is any watchlist, spreadsheet, or automatic order that still references the SPLG symbol, since that ticker no longer trades.

Is SPYM the same as SPY?

No, and this is the more important confusion to clear up. SPY is the original SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, launched in 1993, and it charges about 0.09%. SPYM is the SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, formerly SPLG, and it charges 0.02%. Both track the S&P 500, but they are separate funds with different structures and fees. The new SPYM ticker looks close to SPY, which is exactly why some investors mix them up. For a long-term buy-and-hold investor, the cheaper SPYM tracks the same index for roughly a fifth of SPY's fee.

What does SPYM cost and what does it hold?

SPYM charges a 0.02% expense ratio and holds the roughly 500 stocks in the S&P 500 in market-cap weights, the same as any other S&P 500 index fund. It manages around $175 billion in assets and has an inception date of November 8, 2005, under its former SPLG ticker. That fee is among the lowest available for S&P 500 exposure, a basis point under VOO at 0.03% and well under SPY at about 0.09%.