SPDR FTSE UK All Share ETF: January 2026 update

• State Street has been running ETFs since 1993

• This ETF provides access to hundreds of small, medium-sized and large UK companies

• Since launch, the ETF has tracked the FTSE All-Share Index closely

How it fits in a portfolio

An ETF is a basket of investments that often includes shares or bonds. They tend to track the performance of an index such as the FTSE All-Share Index and trade on stock exchanges, like shares. This means their price fluctuates throughout the day.

The State Street FTSE UK All-Share ETF invests in a range of UK companies of different sizes and across a variety of sectors. The FTSE All-Share Index is a combination of several FTSE indices, including the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and FTSE Small Cap. Though the ETF is heavily weighted to larger businesses meaning performance may be similar to the FTSE 100 – the UK’s 100 largest companies.

An ETF is one of the simplest ways to invest and can be a low-cost starting point for an investment portfolio aiming to deliver long-term growth. This ETF could help diversify a global portfolio, or one focused on smaller companies or bonds.

Manager

State Street’s ETFs are run by the index portfolio team who manage all index products as one group. They are supported by a global team of over 100 fund managers and researchers who help run the ETFs. This team has on average 18 years’ experience, with 12 of these years on average being spent at State Street.

State Street also has dedicated teams that work with brokers and banks to analyse the trades that they place for clients. They ensure that clients are receiving the best trading outcome, like keeping costs as low as possible. Lower costs should help the ETFs track their benchmarks closely.

Process

This ETF aims to track the performance of the UK stock market, as measured by the FTSE All-Share Index. It doesn’t buy every company in the index though and currently invests in 520 companies compared with 539 in the FTSE All-Share Index. This is known as partial replication and can help the ETF track the index without the cost of buying all the holdings.

The ETF excludes some of the smallest companies in the index because they can be more difficult or costly to trade. They also don’t tend to have as much impact on the FTSE All Share’s performance compared with the largest companies that make up a bigger proportion of the index. Excluding them therefore means the ETF can achieve a more cost-effective way of tracking the index.

It does invest in some smaller companies though and, while they have greater potential for growth, they can experience more extreme price movements, which increases risk.

The ETF has tracking error targets, which measure how closely it's tracking its benchmark. These are monitored by the fund managers daily to ensure the ETF is closely following the index.

This ETF can lend some of its investments to others in exchange for a fee in a process known as stock lending. This helps offset some of the costs involved with running the ETF but adds risk.

As this ETF is listed offshore investors are not usually entitled to compensation from the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Culture

State Street is mainly a passive house and has more than 40 years of indexing experience. It created the first US ETF in 1993 and has continued to grow this business ever since. It’s currently the fourth largest asset manager in the world and runs around $5trn of assets globally. SPDR is the ETF brand of State Street.

Employees at State Street are encouraged to hold shares in the company so that they are engaged with helping the company perform well and grow. This should help align the company’s interests with its long-term investors.

ESG Integration

State Street signed up to the Principles for Responsible Investment in 2012. The company has an Asset Stewardship team tasked with voting at company meetings and engaging with them on a variety of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and non-ESG related topics.

State Street first offered ESG ETFs in Europe in 2019 and has continued to develop its product range since then. Given State Street offers mostly passive products, there’s often less flexibility to integrate ESG metrics. Instead, State Street focuses on long-term engagement to drive positive change. The company produces a comprehensive annual Asset Stewardship report, which describes its voting and engagement processes and activity in detail.

In February 2024, State Street controversially withdrew from the Climate Action 100+ collaborative engagement initiative, having concluded that new requirements introduced by the scheme were not consistent with the firm’s ‘independent approach’ to voting and engagement. However, there are some suggestions that US political pressure was to blame. State Street was also named alongside several other large US passive investment managers for failing to support shareholder resolutions relating to environmental and social issues.

This ETF is a passive fund designed to track the FTSE All-Share Index, so it doesn’t integrate ESG analysis or exclude companies in industries like tobacco or alcohol.

Cost

The ETF has an ongoing annual fund charge of 0.20%.

The annual charge to hold ETFs in the HL ISA or SIPP is currently 0.45% (capped at £45 p.a. in the ISA and £200 in the SIPP). There are currently no charges from HL to hold ETFs within the HL Fund and Share Account or HL Junior ISA. As ETFs trade like shares, both a buy and sell instruction will be subject to the HL share dealing charges.

From March 2026, the amount clients pay to invest with us will change.

Performance

Since the ETF launched in February 2012, it’s tracked the FTSE All-Share Index well. Over the last 10 years, it’s returned 118.16%* versus 123.44% for the index. As is typical of ETFs, it’s fallen behind the benchmark over the long term due to the costs involved in running the ETF. However, the tools used by the managers have helped to keep performance tight to the index. Remember, past performance isn’t a guide to future returns.

The FTSE All-Share Index currently has significant exposure to sectors such as financials, consumer staples, industrials and healthcare. Therefore, these sectors are likely to have the biggest impact on the ETF’s performance, though the makeup of the index can change over time.

Over the past 12 months, the ETF gained 23.74% compared to 24.02% for the FTSE All-Share. The financials sector contributed significantly to the ETF’s overall returns as UK banks performed well. Higher interest rates have benefited banks as they increase the cost of borrowing, which boosts profits. The industrials sector was also a key contributor to performance. Aerospace & defence companies, like Rolls-Royce, performed strongly due to the UK’s commitment to increase defence spending.

During this period, large companies performed better than small and medium-sized companies. The FTSE 100 recorded its highest annual gain in 16 years, driven by its exposure to these strong performing sectors.

Given State Street’s size, experience and expertise running ETFs, this ETF should continue to track the FTSE All-Share Index closely in the future, though there are no guarantees.