Data as of Nov 4, 2026.
HELO vs SPY: Differences, Returns & Fees
Over the year to Nov 4, 2026, HELO returned +7.2% to SPY's +14.8%, and SPY charges 0.09% to HELO's 0.50%.
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Net assets on Nov 3, 2026: $4.9bn for JPMorgan Hedged Equity Laddered Overlay ETF and $804.8bn for SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust.
Pair scorecard
SPY costs 0.41 points a year less; their one-year returns differ by 7.6 points; SPY is far larger, $804.8bn against $4.9bn.
| Measure | HELO | SPY |
|---|---|---|
| Return | ||
| Total return, 1 year | +7.2% | +14.8% |
| Total return, 52 weeks | +7.0% | |
| Against its benchmark | ||
| What it tracks | not published | S&P 500 Index |
| Treasury bills, 52 weeks | +3.7% | |
| Against cash | 3.4 points ahead | |
| Cost and size | ||
| Expense ratio | 0.50% | 0.09% |
| Net assets, as of Nov 3, 2026 | $4.9bn | $804.8bn |
| Holdings | ||
| Holdings in common | not published | |
| In the S&P 500, by weight | 100% | |
| Top ten holdings, share of the fund | 37.3% | |
| Risk | ||
| Correlation with the S&P 500’s weekly returns | +0.95 | |
| Beta to the S&P 500 | +0.59: about 0.59% for each 1% | |
| Its average week when the S&P 500 fell | fell 0.65% | |
| Down-week capture | 60.7% | |
| Weeks the S&P 500 fell | 26 of 52, by 1.07% on average | |
Risk and return
Oct 6, 2023 to Oct 30, 2026 · 160 weekly returns · each against VOOFrom Oct 2023 to Oct 2026, SPY returned more: +82.4% to +40.4%. HELO swung less: 7.8% to 14.2%. HELO fell less at its worst: −9.6% to −16.9%.
Full scorecard
19 measures, with how each is measured Open ↓
| Measure | HELO | SPY | VOO | Edge | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Return | |||||
| Total return | +40.4% | +82.4% | SPY | Price change plus distributions, reinvested. | |
| Annualized | +11.6% | +21.6% | SPY | Total return as a yearly rate. | |
| Price return | +37.7% | +75.9% | SPY | Price change alone, distributions left out. | |
| Risk | |||||
| Volatility | 7.8% | 14.2% | HELO | Spread of weekly returns, annualized. Lower is steadier. | |
| Downside deviation | 5.0% | 9.1% | HELO | Like volatility, counting only weeks below the Treasury bill rate. | |
| Max drawdown | −9.6% | −16.9% | HELO | Deepest fall from a high to the low after it. | |
| Upside capture | 44.7% | 100.0% | 100.0% | SPY | Share of its benchmark's rise caught in the weeks it rose. |
| Downside capture | 62.7% | 100.2% | 100.0% | HELO | Share of its benchmark's fall taken in the weeks it fell. Lower is better. |
| Beta | 0.53 | 1.00 | 1.00 | HELO lower | How far it moves for each 1% its benchmark moves. |
| R squared | 0.92 | 1.00 | 1.00 | Not an edge | Share of its weekly moves its benchmark explains. |
| Risk-adjusted | |||||
| Sharpe | 0.88 | 1.13 | SPY | Return above Treasury bills per unit of volatility. | |
| Sortino | 1.37 | 1.77 | SPY | Return above Treasury bills per unit of downside deviation. | |
| Treynor | 0.130 | 0.160 | 0.162 | SPY | Return above Treasury bills per unit of beta. |
| Calmar | 1.22 | 1.28 | SPY (slight) | Annualized return divided by the max drawdown. | |
| Against the benchmark | |||||
| Benchmark | VOO | VOO | VOO | The ETF each fund is measured against. | |
| Alpha | −1.7% a year | −0.2% a year | 0.0% | Not significant | Yearly return beyond what its beta to the benchmark predicts. |
| Alpha t-stat | −1.32 | −1.01 | Not an edge | How sure the alpha is. Below 2, it could be chance. | |
| Alpha range | −4.2% to +0.8% | −0.5% to +0.2% | Both include zero | The 95% range for the yearly alpha. | |
| Information ratio | −1.33 | −0.29 | SPY | Return against its benchmark per unit of tracking error. | |
| Tracking error | 7.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% | Not an edge | How far weekly returns stray from the benchmark, annualized. |
Computed by ETFIQ from Tiingo daily prices and ETFIQ's distribution records, 160 weekly returns. Cash rate: the 13-week Treasury bill.
Side by side
HELO and SPY on the fields both publish, as of Nov 4, 2026. Source: ETFIQ.
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HELO
HELO is a hedged equity fund. ETFIQ measures what every alternatives fund is sold on: whether it moves differently from the stock market. Over the year to Nov 4, 2026, its weekly returns had a correlation of +0.95 with the S&P 500’s and a beta of +0.59, so for each 1% the index moved it moved about 0.59% the same way. The S&P 500 fell in 26 of those 52 weeks, by 1.07% on average. In the same weeks HELO fell 0.65% on average, a down-week capture of 60.7%. Over the same 52 weeks HELO returned +7.0% and a Treasury bill fund +3.7%, so it finished 3.4 percentage points ahead of cash.
SPY
SPY tracks the S&P 500. Over the year to Nov 4, 2026 it returned +14.8% with distributions reinvested, against +14.8% for its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index. The prospectus expense ratio is 0.09% a year. By its holdings published by its issuer for Nov 3, 2026, 100% of the fund by weight is stocks the S&P 500 also holds, across 504 positions, with the top ten at 37.3%.
Questions people ask
- Are HELO and SPY in the same category?
- HELO is an alternatives ETF and SPY is a stock ETF, so they do different jobs. The table compares what both publish: return, cost and holdings.
- Which returned more over the last year, HELO or SPY?
- In the year to Nov 4, 2026, with distributions reinvested, HELO returned +7.2% and SPY +14.8%.
- Which is cheaper, HELO or SPY?
- SPY is cheaper, by 0.41 percentage points a year. That is about $41 on $10,000 held for a year. Fees come from each fund's prospectus.
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ETFIQ, HELO against SPY, data as of Nov 4, 2026. https://etfiq.com/compare/any/helo-vs-spy
ETFIQ. (Nov 4, 2026). HELO against SPY. Retrieved from https://etfiq.com/compare/any/helo-vs-spy
[HELO against SPY (ETFIQ, Nov 4, 2026)](https://etfiq.com/compare/any/helo-vs-spy)
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