SSgA Changes Indexes For 5 Popular ETFs

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the second-largest U.S. ETF sponsor, announced that effective today, five of its ETFs will track different indexes and sport new names. The tickers and expense ratios for the five funds will remain the same. Five SPDR funds are dropping their links to KBW indexes and will now track S&P indexes. As such, KBW will also be dropped from the funds' names. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF KBE will now follow the S&P Banks Select Industry Index. The SPDR S&P Capital Markets ETF KCE will be benchmarked to the S&P Capital Markets Select Industry Index. The SPDR S&P Insurance ETF KIE will track the S&P Insurance Select Industry Index while the SPDR S&P Mortgage Finance ETF KME will track the S&P Mortgage Finance Select Industry Index. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF KRE will now follow the S&P Regional Banks Select Industry Index. "As a leading manager of industry and sector ETFs, we are constantly reviewing the SPDR ETF offering to improve access to a wide range of asset classes," said James Ross, senior managing director and global head of SPDR Exchange Traded Funds at State Street Global Advisors, in a statement. "In addition to unifying our industry SPDR ETFs around a single index provider, the new S&P indices offer investors greater diversification and a rules-based methodology that enhances transparency."