Inside SPMO Stock , How a $18 Billion Momentum ETF Quietly Outran the S&P 500 by 100 Percentage Points

At modest dinner parties on the Upper East Side and in Boston brownstones, there is a small, incredibly out-of-date conversation that takes place when someone’s kid is a CFA charterholder and someone’s brother-in-law works at a wirehouse. Seldom does it come up at cocktail hour. It hardly ever creates a CNBC chyron. Momentum ETFs—more especially, a fund known as SPMO—are the topic of discussion.

With $18.29 billion in assets under management, the fund is trading at $147.10 today, May 14, 2026, a new 52-week high. On a Bloomberg terminal, the chart would appear to be one of those patient, methodical runs that take years to appreciate. Less Tesla. Additional Apollo programs.

The fundamental idea behind SPMO is almost laughably straightforward. It follows the S&P 500 Momentum Index, which filters the S&P 500 for the 100 stocks with the best 12-month price performance, adjusted for volatility, excluding the most recent month. The market capitalization and momentum score are then combined to determine the index’s weighting of those names. That’s all. On television, there is no narrative manager discussing disruption, no AI layer, and no thematic tale.

The fund’s expense ratio is 0.13%, which is about the same as what you would pay to access a standard S&P 500 index fund. That fee arrangement has been one of the more subtly generous deals in contemporary asset management for a strategy that has produced average annual returns of about 17.97% since its launch in October 2015.

The current portfolio’s concentration at the top is what makes it intriguing. The most recent filings show that nearly 52% of total assets are in the top ten holdings. At roughly 9.05%, NVIDIA and Micron Technology are practically deadlocked for first place, followed by Broadcom at 7.48%. The Class A and Class C shares of Alphabet appear twice, totaling more than 9%. The remaining companies are Johnson & Johnson, AMD, Intel, Lam Research, and Exxon Mobil.

The market has been profitable, as seen by the sector breakdown: 53.16% in technology, 12.99% in industrials, 9.24% in communication services, and just 1.21% in consumer cyclical. The allocations give the impression that SPMO has unintentionally evolved into a sort of AI infrastructure index. Winners are not chosen by theme. It just allows the price action speak for itself, and over the past two years, the price action has been loudly discussing semis and hyperscalers.

Portfolio managers and registered investment advisors discreetly shifted client funds into this fund through 2025 because of the fund’s one-year total return of about 25.40%. According to data Seeking Alpha experts have been monitoring, SPMO outperformed the larger S&P 500 by a significant margin in 2024 and 2025. Year-by-year performance over the past ten years have yielded cumulative returns of 338.1% versus 231.2% for the S&P 500 itself. That’s a big difference.

Compounded across the whole portfolio, it is the difference between retiring early and retiring on schedule. The approach is kept honest by the fund’s rebalancing schedule, which removes assets that have lost relative momentum and adds new ones that are gaining it. Additionally, it is the reason why long-term holders of taxable accounts must prepare for certain types of capital gains distributions and turnover risk.

But there’s a complication that’s worth dealing with. In market regimes where defensive sectors take over or where leadership changes frequently, momentum strategies have generally performed poorly. In a year like 2024, when AI infrastructure dominated the market, the fund’s 53% tech concentration is a feature. However, in a year where, say, geopolitical turmoil forces capital back into staples and energy, it may be a vulnerability.

Exxon Mobil’s recent inclusion at 2.94% indicates that the index is already beginning to wander, possibly in anticipation of that change. Additionally, the fund’s top two holdings have a combined exposure of more than 18%. For an ETF that was once marketed as a diversified factor product, that is a significant amount of single-stock risk.

The cultural context surrounding this type of product is also difficult to ignore. Thematic ETFs, such as those named after blockchain, cybersecurity, or robotics, have dominated the louder segments of financial media for the most of the past ten years. When their stories are popular, those funds typically draw in assets and lose them equally fast.

By only operating a momentum screen for ten years, SPMO has accumulated around $18 billion in assets, which is a different and more dull approach. This type of fund is not popular on social media. The 30-day yield of 0.77% is not noteworthy. Recent quarterly dividends have shown low numbers, such as $0.29092 in December. This isn’t sexy at all. Everything has been successful.

The question isn’t whether the strategy is sound for an investor considering SPMO at this time. The historical record is quite remarkable. After a multi-year rise in which the biggest U.S. corporations have already been bid to historically high multiples, the question is whether momentum as a factor still has capacity to grow. The fund’s trailing P/E ratio of 38.87 is concerning in and of itself. It’s not exactly a cheap purchase.

As the market as a whole is being repriced due to concerns about AI capital expenditures and earnings noise, there is a sense that the next 12 months will be the true test of the strategy. In 2026, the trade that flourished in 2024 and 2025 might encounter its first real obstacle. The chart still has a lovely appearance. The names that propelled the surge are still abundant in the portfolio. Depending on which aspect of momentum investing’s lengthy track record you tend to trust, that might be a warning or a source of comfort.