This Is the Only ETF That Gets You More Gains With Less Risk

Before you sue me, I’d take a look into the Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF‘s (NYSEARCA:SPMO | SPMO Price Prediction) history and compare it with the S&P 500. Of course, you cannot judge the future based off of historical performance alone, but this is the only ETF that has managed to outperform the S&P 500 while losing less during downturns time and time again. That makes it worth knowing more about.

SPMO does something almost embarrassingly simple. It owns the top 100 S&P 500 stocks ranked by 12-month momentum, rebalances twice a year in March and September, and charges 0.13% for the trouble. You are essentially renting last year’s leaders, holding them six months, then swapping out the laggards. When momentum is the dominant factor in the market, which it has been for most of the post-2020 stretch, that mechanical rotation keeps the portfolio loaded with the right names just slightly longer than discipline alone would allow.

SPMO’s lead over SPY runs into the double digits

Over one year, SPMO is up 31.5% against the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust‘s (NYSEARCA:SPY) 23%. Over five years, 156% versus 76%. Stretch it to ten and SPMO has returned 457% while SPY managed 262%. A $1,000 stake five years ago would now be worth roughly $2,404 by Benzinga’s accounting, an annualized 20% against a much quieter SPY.

The risk side is where the story gets more interesting. The fund’s selection rule mechanically dumps weakening names at each rebalance, so the portfolio rotates out of broken trends before they become disasters.

That is why 24/7 Wall St. coverage earlier this year argued SPMO has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 over the past three years while maintaining comparable or lower downside risk.

Even in the messy spring of 2026, SPMO bottomed near $107 in March and is now around $143, a recovery the broad index quietly tracked but did not match.

What you give up to get this

Concentration is the first cost. SPMO’s top ten positions account for more than 52% of assets, with Broadcom, NVIDIA, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, and Palantir sitting at the top of the book. You are buying whatever was working through the last lookback window, which lately means a tech-heavy basket that would hurt in a sharp style rotation rather than diversified large-cap America.

The second cost is the factor’s own behavior. Momentum works until it does not, and when it breaks, it breaks fast. Seeking Alpha flagged this in January, noting that “with the S&P 500’s momentum stalling, SPMO could see significant portfolio changes and potentially flatter performance in 2026.”

That hasn’t proven to be the case so far this year. Momentum is still working.

After a strong run, the fund’s valuations have stretched well above the broader index, the kind of setup that has historically preceded sideways stretches rather than fresh breakouts.

Income is a footnote here. The trailing yield runs around 0.7%, but I doubt that’s what anyone is buying this for.

Who SPMO fits

SPMO works as a core or satellite growth sleeve for investors who already own a broad index fund and want a tilt toward whatever the market is currently rewarding, without paying a stock-picker to guess.

If you can tolerate the concentration and accept that one bad rebalance cycle could give back a year of outperformance, the math has favored holders for a decade. If you need stable income, low turnover, or sector neutrality, a plain S&P 500 fund or a dividend aristocrat ETF will sit better in the portfolio than this one will.