Which S&P 500 ETF Tracker is Best in 2026? (VOO vs IVV vs SPY vs SPYM vs RSP)

Which S&P 500 ETF tracker is the best choice for your portfolio? In this video, we're going to look at the five most popular S&P 500 ETFs in the world in detail so you can pick the absolute best one for your hard-earned money. Now, first, we're going to take a look at VOO, which is Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF that was launched back in 2010. VOO has grown to a staggering $1.5 trillion in assets under management due to Vanguard's massive asset size and scale. Now, if you're unfamiliar with what an S&P 500 index fund is, it tracks 500 of the largest public-traded companies in the world, and it weighs them by company size. And what that means is that the biggest companies in the world, such as Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Google, Avago, and more, have the biggest impact on the index's performance. And what's more, when you're investing in the S&P 500, you're getting broad access to every major sector of the economy. The biggest sector by far is the information technology sector, but other major sectors include industrials, healthcare, financials, communication services, consumer discretionary, and more. Now, the S&P 500 and VOO have had a fabulous 10-year return. VOO has compounded at a 15.6% rate over the last 10 years, which is well above its historic long-term average of about 10% per year. Moreover, one reason that VOO has become so dominant is its dirt-chief expense ratio of just 0.03%, which is super low in absolute terms. Now, to put that number in perspective, if you invested $10,000 in VOO and earned a return of 5% per year, after one year, your total bill for owning this fund would just be $3, and after 10 years, your total bill per year would be about $39. That's an extremely low price to pay for accessing such a high-quality fund. If you're the type of investor who has an account at Vanguard and just wants exposure to the 500 largest companies in the world, VOO is a perfect choice for you. Up next, we have IVV, which is the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF. Now, this fund was launched by BlackRock back in the year 2000, and just like VOO, it's a massive fund with $720 billion in total assets under management. Now, IVV matches VOO in nearly every single way. It has the same exact holdings and weighting, it has the exact same 10-year returns, and it has that same expense ratio of just 0.03%. So, just like before, if you put $10,000 into this fund, you would pay those same exact low fees each and every year. Like VOO, IVV is the perfect set-it-and-forget-it core holding for long-term investors who want institutional-grade efficiency. So, if you're the type of investor that wants broad exposure to the American economy without high management fees of active funds, IVV is a fantastic choice for you. The next fund we're going to take a look at is the legendary SPY, which was the very first ETF listed in the United States. Now, this fund hit the markets way back in 1993, and it's very much the granddaddy of the ETF world, having been the first ETF that was launched, and it still remains one of the most famous tickers on Wall Street today. Now, SPY has amassed a massive $700 billion in total assets under management. Now, just like IVV and VOO, SPY holds the exact same companies because it's an S&P 500 fund, and it has the exact same 10-year returns as IVV and VOO. However, SPY does stick out in one way from VOO and IVV, and that is with its high expense ratio. SPY has an expense ratio of 0.09%, which is low in absolute terms, but it's three times higher than VOO and IVV. If you put $10,000 in this fund, it would cost you about $9 per year in year one and about $117 per year in year 10. Now, this does show why paying attention to that expense ratio can be so important, because in this case, you're literally paying triple the fees for the exact same fund. Now, even though SPY is more expensive than IVV and VOO, it is the go-to choice for high volume traders because of its massive size and liquidity makes it very easy to buy and sell instantly. Now, SPY is still used today by professional institutions that use it to move billions of dollars in and out of the market in an instant. So if you're a trader that values liquidity above all, SPY is likely to be the top choice. But if you're an individual investor looking to put money in the S&P 500, S&P isn't the right choice for you. Now, as an aside, if you're interested in learning how to invest in ETFs, I made a series of ETF cheat sheets and I compiled them together into a single book. If you want a free copy of that investing book, just visit longtermmindset.co backslash ETF or click the link in the video description. The next round we're going to take a look at is SPYM, which is the SPDR portfolio S&P 500 ETF. Now, this fund was launched by State Street back in 2005, and it was created specifically to compete in the low cost core space with IVV and SPY. However, this fund is an even more affordable alternative to the original SPY. Now, if you've never heard of this ticker symbol before, this fund used to be called SPLG, but changed this ticker to SPYM in October of 2025. Now, SPYM holds the exact same companies in the exact same proportion as the other three funds do, and it also has the exact same long-term returns. However, where this fund stands apart is its rock bottom expense ratio of just 0.02% per year. That means that SPYM has even lower fees than even Vanguard can match. So if we compare SPYM's expense ratio to that of VOO, IVV, and SPY, you are paying the absolute lowest cost that is available to put money into the S&P 500. And by keeping fees lower than even Vanguard or iShares can offer, SPYM ensures that you keep the maximum amount of your profits from holding great companies for the long term. And that brings us to our final contender on this list, which is RSP, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, which launched back in 2003. Now, this fund is unique because it ignores market size and gives every company in the S&P 500 an equal share of the portfolio. So while most S&P 500 companies are concentrated and look like this, this is the composition of RSP, where every company in it is given an equal portfolio size. This means that it doesn't have any top holdings. Every single company in the S&P 500 is held in the exact same share. Now, RSP has managed to attract about $75 billion in assets under management. However, its equal weight strategy has actually caused it to underperform the S&P 500 over the last decade. RSP has produced an annualized return of about 12.4% per year, which is about three basis points behind the regular S&P 500. In addition, investors do have to pay up to own this type of S&P 500 tracker, as it has an expense ratio of 0.20%, which is 10 times higher than SPYM. That expense ratio really shines through when you look year by year, as after 10 years of investing $10,000 into this fund, you can expect to pay about $260 or more per year. Now, even though RSP has a lower longer term return and a higher expense ratio, I don't think you should count out this fund just yet. This fund is the best choice for investors who want to avoid having too much money in the top tech giants of the day. So while the standard S&P 500 invests heavily in companies like Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft, RSP ensures that smaller companies like Lululemon have the same impact on your return over the long term. So if you're worried that the S&P 500 is becoming too concentrated in the top names, RSP can be a way to get exposure to the S&P 500 without that same heavy concentration risk. So taking everything into account, which of these trackers are the best choice for you? Well, that mostly depends on what you are looking for in an S&P 500 ETF. If you're a trader who's trying to optimize for liquidity and options, SPY is probably the way to go. If you want less exposure to the mega caps and want to equate your S&P 500 exposure, RSP is the best choice, even though it's still the most expensive. But if you're just an individual investor like me who wants a dollar cost average in the S&P 500 and pay as little as possible, SPYM is my top pick. It gives you the exact same exposure as VOO, IVV, and SPY, but at the absolute lowest possible cost. Although in reality, I don't think you could really go wrong with investing in any of these five funds. As a friendly reminder, if you want access to those infographics I mentioned before, just go to longtermmindset.co backslash ETF or click the link in the video description. Well, thanks so much for watching. I hope this video was helpful. I'll see you in the next video.