SPDR files for UC Investments 90/10 Endowment Strategy Index ETF

State Street Global Advisors, the firm behind the SPDR brand, has filed to launch a new ETF modeled on the investment approach of one of the largest institutional investors in the country. The UC Investments 90/10 Endowment Strategy Index ETF would effectively package the University of California’s endowment philosophy into a wrapper that retail and institutional investors can buy like any other stock.

What the 90/10 split actually means

The “90/10” in the name almost certainly refers to the asset allocation: 90% equities, 10% fixed income or other stabilizing assets. That’s an aggressive tilt toward stocks, even by endowment standards.

For context, UC Investments already runs the Blue & Gold Endowment Pool, which has historically operated around an 80/20 allocation between equities and other asset classes. That pool has grown to roughly $7 billion and posted a recent annual return of 15.8%. The new ETF appears to push the equity dial even further.

This tracks with a broader strategic shift at UC Investments. The university system has been deliberately moving toward increased public equity exposure, with a target of raising public equity allocation to 50% of its total portfolio. At the same time, it has been pulling back from hedge funds, a category that has fallen out of favor with several major endowments over the past decade due to high fees and inconsistent outperformance.

SPDR and UC Investments: not their first collaboration

This filing isn’t coming out of nowhere. SPDR and UC Investments have worked together before. In 2022, the University of California committed $300 million to SPDR MSCI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned ETFs, a climate-focused fund designed to tilt portfolios toward companies aligned with Paris Agreement targets.

The filing remains in its early stages. No ticker symbol, expense ratio, or assets under management target have been disclosed yet.

UC Investments manages nearly $180 billion across endowment, pension, and working capital pools for the University of California system, ranking it among the largest institutional investors in the US.

Why this matters for investors

The 90/10 allocation is notably aggressive. A portfolio with 90% in equities carries meaningful downside risk during market corrections. But for investors with long time horizons, which is exactly what an endowment is designed for, the historical data tends to favor heavy equity weightings. The Blue & Gold pool’s 15.8% annual return illustrates the potential upside of that approach, though past performance and future results are, as always, different conversations.

One thing this ETF clearly is not: a crypto play. There is no indication that the fund includes any exposure to digital assets, blockchain-related equities, or cryptocurrency of any kind.

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