The ticker symbol for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust is SPY.
SPY is an exchange-traded fund designed to track the performance of the S&P 500 by holding the companies in the index. It trades on NYSE Arca, and its short ticker has become one of the most recognizable symbols in the ETF market.
The fund launched on January 22, 1993, making it the first ETF listed in the United States. It was developed by State Street Global Advisors in cooperation with American Stock Exchange executives Nathan Most and Steven Bloom. The name SPDR originally referred to “Standard & Poor’s Depositary Receipts,” although the fund is now formally called the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust.
SPY is often confused with SPX, which is the symbol commonly used for the S&P 500 index itself rather than an ETF share. QQQ tracks the Nasdaq-100, while DIA tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Because SPY is an ETF, investors buy and sell shares in a fund, not the index directly.