RSP Trailed IVV by $95,160 on $300,000 Over Five Years. Over One Year, It Led

Suppose you put $300,000 into the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEARCA:RSP) on October 22, 2021. By October 22, 2026, it had grown to $447,060, a 49.02% return. The same money in the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:IVV), which tracks the S&P 500, reached $542,220, up 80.74%. The equal-weight holder finished $95,160 behind.

Now shorten the window. Over the one year ending October 22, 2026, RSP returned 15.77%, while IVV returned 15.04%. Year to date through the same day, RSP is up 14.84%, and IVV is up 12.88%. Same two funds, opposite verdicts.

How Both Funds Were Measured

IVV serves as the S&P 500 comparison. Both funds are measured on a dividend-adjusted basis over identical windows: October 22, 2021 to October 22, 2026 for five years, and the 12 months ending October 22, 2026. Distributions count on both sides.

That detail matters. A plain price comparison against some S&P 500 funds leaves out their dividends and skews the result. That is why this comparison uses a dividend-adjusted basis for both funds.

Why Equal Weight Swings Between Laggard and Leader

Equal weighting resets every company in the index to the same slice at each rebalance (the periodic trim back to target). The largest companies end up with a far smaller share than they hold in a fund weighted by company size. The smallest end up with far more.

The design tends to lag when a handful of the biggest companies drive the market. It tends to lead when the typical company outpaces the giants. That is a general description of how the design behaves; this article did not analyze what drove the past year and makes no claim about the cause.

Each Window Tells Only Part of the Story

Be fair to the five-year record first. A stretch dominated by the largest companies is the environment where equal weighting looks worst. RSP’s deficit reflects that environment.

That said, one year is a short window, and it does not undo a five-year deficit. The $95,160 gap already includes the past year’s outperformance.

Neither window tells you which approach will win from here. Investors who dumped RSP after five lagging years locked in the deficit just before the design started leading. Investors who pile in now after a single good year risk buying into the next stretch of underperformance. Both groups react to timing rather than design.

That is the hidden cost this series keeps finding. The window you pick decides the verdict. For a retiree drawing income, a switch made at the wrong moment can hurt more because there are fewer years left to recover.

What to Check on Any S&P 500 Fund’s Page

Start with a different question: how concentrated do you want your S&P 500 exposure to be? Open each fund’s holdings page and check four things:

• Top 10 weight: the share of assets held by the ten largest positions.
• Largest single holding: how much one company can move your balance.
• Sector breakdown: whether one industry dominates the portfolio.
• Number of holdings: how many companies actually carry meaningful weight.

Put an equal-weight fund and a cap-weighted fund side by side, and the difference in concentration shows up quickly. For longer windows on the same question, see our companion pieces: One of These S&P 500 Funds Has Trailed for 10 Years and Is Equal-Weighting the S&P 500 Worth It?

How to Choose Between the Two Approaches

Pick your weighting the way you pick a stock-to-bond mix — once, deliberately, based on how much concentration you can tolerate. If you want your money to ride the largest companies, a cap-weighted fund like IVV does that by design. If owning a few giants makes you uneasy, equal weight spreads the risk, but the cost is long stretches of trailing when those giants lead. Choose concentration, then stick with it for a full market cycle. Judging either fund on its most recent year is how investors end up paying the gap twice.

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