Unlocking the securities lending potential of SPY
- It’s important to look beyond an ETF’s expense ratio when assessing its total cost—consider other factors like securities lending potential.
- Securities lending, an essential component of capital markets activity, facilitates settlement, injects liquidity, and fosters confidence for risk taking.
- SPY acounted for an estimated average of 89% of S&P 500® ETF notional short interest and 24% of total ETF notional short interest through August 2025.1
Relying solely on the expense ratio of an exchange traded fund (ETF) to assess its total cost can be limiting. That’s why it is crucial for institutional investors to consider additional factors—like potential income from securities lending—when selecting the right ETF to trade.
Compared to other investment vehicles tracking the S&P 500® Index, the SPDR® S&P 500® ETF Trust (SPY) delivers a specific cost offset advantage through its unique lending market.
Securities lending with ETFs
Securities lending, or the exercise of loaning securities to other investors, is a key aspect of capital markets activity that facilitates settlement, injects liquidity, and fosters confidence for risk taking. These benefits are accessible to all types of investors, spanning from long-term stable asset base investors to more active participants, like hedge funds or market makers.
ETF securities lending has grown alongside broader adoption of the ETF structure. Many investors may be familiar with “inside” lending, or the practice in which ETF issuers lend out the constituents shares of the ETF. “Outside” lending, however, refers to when ETF beneficial owners make their ETF shares available for borrowing.
In some cases, “outside” lending can serve as a more relevant driver of returns, with the potential to earn lending returns that offset the fees of the fund.
The unique nature of SPY securities lending
As the world’s most actively traded ETF,2 SPY stands at the forefront of most ETF capital markets activity. And securities lending is an important component of that ecosystem.
Through the end of August 2025, SPY represented an estimated average of 88.8% of S&P 500 ETF notional short interest and 24.2% of total ETF notional short interest from over 3,600 US-listed funds.3
Most importantly, SPY’s $40.6 billion notional in average daily secondary market volume accounted for more than 19.2% of all ETF trading through August 2025.4 As different users meet on the exchange, centralized pools of liquidity form, benefitting all users of SPY. And as different investors access SPY’s liquidity, demand to borrow SPY shares ebbs and flows with market dynamics across use cases.
Why investors borrow SPY
Borrowers of SPY are typically hedge fund managers, investment managers, options traders, or market makers who seek to:
- Short
- Hedge
- Cover pending settlements
- Create arbitrage opportunities
But what are the two most notable and persistent drivers of this supply and demand?
Listed options
- Between September 2024 and August 2025, SPY options open interest averaged nearly 19 million contracts per day—accounting for over 99% of S&P 500® ETF options open interest.5
- On a transactional basis, SPY averaged over 8.5 million options contracts traded per day, representing 99.9% of all S&P 500 ETF options traded over the past 12 months.6
Fungibility with futures
- SPY serves as a significant bridge between futures and cash markets.
- Given the availability of liquid futures contracts tracking the S&P 500® Index, an investor can hold SPY against an S&P 500® futures contract as a market neutral arbitrage strategy.
- From a securities lending perspective, this natural hedge provides an incentive for banks to carry SPY shares—ultimately making them easy to borrow within the institutional trading community.
Potential yield from lending SPY?
When evaluating the potential yield generated from securities lending, we can look at the volume-weighted average fee (VWAF) and the utilization rate percentage:
- The VWAF represents the average fee charged by a lender to a counterparty expressed in annualized terms.
- The utilization rate is the shares on-loan as a percentage of shares made available for loan.
To demonstrate the potential return on shares made available, we can multiply the VWAF by the utilization rate to determine the historical return on lendable assets:
| Ticker | Fund name | Trailing 1-year average | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VWAF bps | Utilization rate % | Gross return on lendable assets (bps) | ||
| SPY | SPDR S&P 500 ETF | 12 | 14% | 1.6 |
| IVV | iShares Core S&P 500 ETF | 12 | 1% | 0.1 |
| VOO | Vanguard S&P 500 ETF | 11 | 2% | 0.2 |
Source: Markit IHS as of September 9, 2025; Estimates are for illustrative purposes only and do not include additional return factors such as agency lending fees, reinvestment rates, or other considerations. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
Relative to its peers,7 SPY’s historical return on lendable assets reflects how the fund’s broader user base supports consistent demand. And, it underscores how vital it is for institutional investors to look beyond a fund’s expense ratio to consider factors like securities lending potential and transaction costs when selecting the right S&P 500® ETF.
What else can you do with SPY?
The possibilities are nearly endless when you invest in the world’s most traded ETF.8
Connect with the SPDR Execution Strategy and Analytics (ESA) team
Through strong relationships with authorized participants, market makers, liquidity providers, execution trading desks/platforms, and stock exchanges, the SPDR ESA team plays an active role in supporting competitive markets and maintaining the SPDR ETF liquidity ecosystem.
The team’s insight into primary and secondary market activity—as well as access to numerous proprietary pre-trade liquidity analytics tools—can help you to evaluate execution strategies and meet your objectives, even in uncertain markets.
Connect with them to learn more about the lending potential of SPY or to request the team’s help.