State Street Global Advisors, the third-largest issuer of ETFs in the U.S., is having an eventful week. The firm celebrated 20 years of trading for first physical gold ETF to list in the U.S., a major milestone, and filed to launch an ETF with Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates. Bridgewater runs one of the most successful hedge funds in the world.
“State Street Global Advisors has been bringing innovative ETFs for decades and continues to do so. It is great to see them partnering with top-tier firms to bring institutional expertise into the advisor market,” said TMX VettaFi Head of Research Todd Rosenbluth.
The SPDR Gold Shares (GLD ) launched in 2004 and became the first ETF to reach $1 billion in assets within just three trading days. Today, the fund is worth roughly $72 billion.
GLD was groundbreaking because gold is difficult to own in large amounts. After all, it costs money to store it securely, and it’s not easy to transport. GLD’s existence means that investors can hold as much gold as they want, with no worries about its storage or safety, for just 40 basis points. Ultimately, the fund is a democratizing force for investors, making ownership of actual physical gold a possibility for all investors.
State Street's New Partnership
On Tuesday, news broke that State Street had filed to launch the SPDR Bridgewater All Weather ETF. Bridgewater will provide a unique multi-asset model portfolio that will serve as the basis for the ETF’s holdings.
The proposed fund is essentially a “go anywhere” product that strongly resembles a hedge fund strategy. Its model can allocate largely as it sees fit across equities, fixed income securities, commodities and a range of derivatives. The derivatives will be held in a Cayman Islands subsidiary limited to 25% of the total portfolio.
Earlier this year, State Street Global Advisors also teamed up with Apollo Global Management. The agreement targets the goal of bringing private market investments to a wider swath of investors.
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