A Broad Approach to Innovative Trends Helps This SPDR ETF Outperform

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Two years ago, we removed a thematic fund focused on alternative energy from the Kiplinger ETF 20, the list of our favorite exchange-traded funds, and replaced it with the SPDR S&P Kensho New Economies Composite ETF (KOMP), which spreads its bets across a variety of new-new things, including green energy, drones, smart homes and electric vehicles.

Since then, the Kensho ETF has returned a cumulative 25.7%. That doesn't beat the S&P 500, which has gained 45.0%, but it's far better than the cumulative 39.6% decline in the Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW), the fund that the Kensho ETF replaced. In other words, a more diversified approach to investing in innovative technology, products and services has paid off.

The list of Kensho New Economies' top 10 holdings is loaded with stocks that have more than doubled in price over the past 12 months, including aerospace firms Elbit Systems (ESLT), up 136%, and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS), up 187%.

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Aerospace and defense firms, at 9% of assets, are the fund's biggest sector, followed by application software companies and firms that make electronic equipment and instruments.

Investors need to buckle up

Make no mistake: This index fund can still be volatile. Over the past 12 months, Kensho New Economies has been 60% more volatile than the S&P 500. From the start of 2025 through early April, worries about a trade war dragged the fund down 19.5% – a bigger decline than in the broad market benchmark.

But since April, investors have largely pushed aside any qualms related to tariffs, and growth stocks have begun to dominate the U.S. stock market again. Since the market's April 8 nadir, Kensho New Economies has soared 43%. That's well ahead of the S&P 500, which returned 30%.

And some of the fund's worst performers during the early 2025 swoon are now its biggest gainers, including Ouster (OUST), an electronic component company, which has risen 332% since early April, and communications equipment firm Viasat (VSAT), which has climbed 320%.

Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly, trustworthy source of advice and guidance. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of the money you make here.

Nellie joined Kiplinger in August 2011 after a seven-year stint in Hong Kong. There, she worked for the Wall Street Journal Asia, where as lifestyle editor, she launched and edited Scene Asia, an online guide to food, wine, entertainment and the arts in Asia. Prior to that, she was an editor at Weekend Journal, the Friday lifestyle section of the Wall Street Journal Asia. Kiplinger isn't Nellie's first foray into personal finance: She has also worked at SmartMoney (rising from fact-checker to senior writer), and she was a senior editor at Money.