Building Better Investment Solutions: Inside State Street’s ETF Innovation Playbook

Sponsored Content by State Street

This interview is sponsored content by State Street Investment Management. The content and opinions expressed are those of the participants and should not be considered investment, legal or financial advice.

Full transcript

(created by AI, edited for clarity, style and readability)

Ric Edelman: Hi there, I’m Ric Edelman. Thanks for joining us today. I’m very excited to be having this really fascinating conversation with Mark Alberici. He is the Global Head of Product Innovation for State Street Investment Management. Mark, it’s so great to be talking with you.

Mark Alberici: Thanks, Ric, and thanks so much for having me on the show. I followed the show over my career, so I’m excited to be here.

Ric: So you’re the one. I appreciate that an awful lot. You’ve been at State Street for quite some time, but you don’t emanate from State Street. You actually hail from Scotland. Talk about your background. And more importantly, along with that, I want you to talk about the key lessons you’ve learned that can help others in their career path. Talk about your journey.

Mark: Yeah, absolutely, Ric. So, look, you’re talking to a Scottish-Italian transplant, who began their career actually studying electrical engineering. Came to the US, lived mainly in New York, and now, for the past year, I’ve been in Boston, working for the world’s fourth largest asset manager. And sometimes, even though while I’m looking out the window today, it’s rainy, it feels like Scotland, I don’t know how I got here myself, so I must have gotten on the wrong plane. But ultimately, you know, there are a couple of things that, throughout my career, and even through university, emanated to me, and that was around 3 things. Firstly, the importance of bringing people together. Secondly, around problem solving. And then thirdly, about always trying to stay level-headed and providing direction. So I’ll unpack that a wee bit more.

So, you know, you alluded to, I grew up in Europe, mainly in Scotland, had a wee stint of my earlier years in Italy before going to uni. I actually did a, couple semesters in Paris, where I played rugby, and one of the things that I learned was it’s so important to, when you try to integrate with folks, to find some commonality, right? And to me, in Paris, it was playing rugby, and suddenly, I was no longer the kid in the playground that no one was talking to. I was sort of part of the cool kids. And then later in my career, you know, I started off in the back and middle office at Merrill Lynch, and I remember at the time, there was a very senior business leader who you know, when they celebrated trades or sales wins, they always went beyond the front office. They gave the credit to everybody in the back, and that was something that I always aspired to in how I tried to lead. So, bringing people together, fundamental. Secondly, problem solving. You know, I mentioned I began as an engineer. And that was really because I always enjoyed trying to solve problems, and I stress the try. But what engineering taught me was ultimately how to break down complex products into more manageable, simple problems. And then, ultimately, by doing that, you can typically solve the issue. And then thirdly, staying level-headed and, you know, providing direction. So, in my career, I was very fortunate to be a trader over the financial crisis in 2008. So bring yourself back to 2008, markets were fast moving. There was lots of stress, not just daily, but minute by minute. There was a lot of money at stake. And I recall our head trader at the time, a wonderful guy called Tom Patrick Jr, he always stayed calm, he ensured that everybody on the desk, we knew what we were all responsible for doing, and ultimately, we came out okay.

So thinking about those three lessons, bringing people together, problem solving, staying level-headed, how do I apply this today in my role? It’s quite simple. I can’t do anything, and I can’t do anything without all the help, the enthusiasm and ultimately the brains of many, many people at State Street Investment Management. So when I think about ETFs, for instance. We have an amazing operational team. We have the great client coverage team, we have a great investments team and many, many more. And ultimately, my job is relatively simple. I’ve got to bring everyone together. Paint to them a broader vision and set clear objectives. And ultimately, you know, as we go into new areas of innovation, problems are gonna come up. That’s just life. But being able to deal with the problems very calmly, thoughtfully, will ultimately ensure that we create the best outcomes for our clients.

Ric: It’s a fascinating journey you’ve been on. You skipped one little piece I want you to elaborate on for us, Mark, and that is going from engineering to the financial services industry, because those are two very, very different career paths. So, talk about that transition.

Mark: Yeah, so that transition, it really came down to, quite simple, and this is something that I believe you’re a big proponent of – being financially aware and educated is very, very important. And that’s one of the things I’ve always believed in, democratizing access to investing. If you know how finance works, simple cash flows, to then extend that to investing. Then you can take care of your family, you can take care of any aspirations that you want to do. So, to me, the natural progression from engineering was to move into finance to help bridge that gap.

Ric: Well, that’s an unusual decision to make among engineers, and I’m gonna stereotype your engineer former self. Financial advisors love to hate engineers. I mean, we have so many clients who are engineers, and we love them to death. But we also love to tease them. And the reason is that engineers, by training, and I think by disposition, the reason people go into engineering is because they have this natural innate skill and ability and interest, and their training supports, augments, enhances all of this. Engineers are very I don’t know what the word is, practical people, they’re specific people, meaning that if I tell you I need you to build a bridge, you know that there’s really only one way to do it. I mean, I know there are a lot of bridge styles, but there’s essentially one way to do this, and if you deviate, the bridge will collapse. And engineers don’t like to do anything unless they know what the outcome’s going to be. I’m not going to build a bridge and then hope it works. Right? I’m not gonna build you an airplane and hope it’ll fly. I’m going to construct this knowing what the outcome is going to be. We’re going to do this through rigorous testing and rigorous invention and innovation, but we are going to know the outcome. That is the antithesis of Wall Street. I mean, we build an investment product on Wall Street, and we can’t possibly truly know for sure what the result’s gonna be. The word guaranteed does not exist in our vocabulary on Wall Street, but an engineer pretty much loves to use that word that, I guarantee you can drive on this bridge. So talk about how you’ve reconciled the certainty of the engineering world with the uncertainty of the financial world.

Mark: Yeah, look, I think it all comes down to, having a robust and a strong innovation philosophy. Right? And that also allows us to sort of disband between what are real trends versus what are fads in the marketplace today. You know, so when I think about our innovation philosophy, and you talk about the engineers, ultimately, the engineer is building something for a client use case, right? So, the first pillar of our innovation philosophy is, what problem does the client have today? That we’re trying to solve for. If I think about it, State Street Investment Management, we have 175 ETFs in the US, we have 76 mutual funds, we have 34 model portfolios and many, many other solutions. I need to first check, do I have a current solution that works? And if not, then work with the client to figure out what that problem is we’re trying to address. Then once we figure out that problem, the next question is, is there a strong investment thesis? And I’m very fortunate that I have 500-plus investment and research professionals that, you know, ultimately, I’m going to use their brains and know-hows to make sure that while we can’t maybe deliver or guarantee that outcome, we have a very good sense of how it should behave over different market cycles, such that no one goes in surprised. And then lastly, how do we deliver it to the client? So I like to think about we’re wrapper aware, you know? The ETF is a wonderful wrapper, but at the same time, we need to think about we have other wrappers, we have direct indexing capabilities with SMAs and UMAs. Like, what is the right wrapper for the right solution that the client needs?

Ric: So it sounds like you’re striking the best of both worlds. You know, we need to build a bridge to get across this river, but we’re recognizing that some people are going to be driving, others are going to be walking, and we’re going to be doing it in different kinds of weather, and so let’s develop different solutions to meet different people’s needs. That strikes me as a very pragmatic approach, that you’re bringing a very real-world response to the uncertainty that most people associate with. And that means … you mentioned a word in there I want to pick up on, the word trend. You mentioned that the key is to recognize trends so that you can figure out what is it that the client needs, what does the advisor need, what is lacking, and that means you’ve got to do some forward thinking to identify the trends as they emerge, so that you can get ahead of this, because it doesn’t do any good to build something when, you know, it has already been well established. The key is to build it first, so that you’re there to enjoy the growth that will then occur. So how do you identify trends? And what are the trends that you’re focusing on right now?

Mark: Yeah, so look, I want to say we are probably at the most exciting part of the ETF industry, right? There were 2,000 ETFs launched globally. 2,000, that is amazing. But that’s why I think it’s very important to think about what are those trends, what are actually here that are going to last versus just one-offs. You know, at State Street Investment Management, that’s why I think having that robust innovation framework allows us to basically cut through where we want to focus on, versus where others might prefer. So a couple of trends that we’re clearly hearing right now is around private markets access. It’s around options-based ETFs. It’s around crypto. So, for example, one of the things that we launched earlier this year was our Select Sector SPDR Premium Income Funds. And ultimately, from someone who started their career in derivatives trading, it was a no-brainer, right? I’ve seen option-based solutions being offered to clients since I started my career in the early 2000s. The first covered call was actually done in the late 1970s, when the CBOE listed the S&P 500. So, when we heard client feedback saying they wanted an income solution, to allow them to continue to invest in sectors while still getting a higher dividend than just the traditional underlying, it was a no-brainer to put this into an ETF.

Ric: So, it’s really fascinating that you mentioned 2,000 ETFs invented, you know, I assume it’s like, gee, we don’t have enough of them already, but these are not also rans, these are not just, you know, more of the same. These are genuinely innovative products. What is creating the environment for the innovation?

Mark: So, look, I think part of it was in the US, driven by the ETF rule. Right? That occurred a few years back, which really allowed any issuer to step in here. But I think one of the things that we have to do as an issuer, we need to acknowledge a couple of things. The ETF can be used by anybody at any time, right? So, I like to think about my position today, I have a real responsibility to ensure that together with my teams, we ultimately provide financial solutions that can stand the test of time in good markets, in bad markets. So that’s how we think about our philosophy here.

Ric: You know, you mentioned 2,000 products. In the last 2 years alone, I think State Street has launched 100 of them, or more. Talk about how you decide which new products to launch. How do you go about that?

Mark: Yeah, absolutely, Ric. So you’ve heard me use the term solution a lot as opposed to product, and that’s because I like to think about we’re in the solutions business. We’re trying to solve problems for the end investor, for the financial advisor. And ultimately, that process starts with listening first. Understanding the client’s objectives. Right. So, for example, we have a client coverage team that spans a gamut of pensions, sovereign wealth funds, to financial advisors. And ultimately, what we try to do, specifically, and if I focus on the financial advisory team, we’ve established a Client Advisory Council. Okay? And what that allows us to do is we listen closely to our top clients. We understand the challenges they’re facing. Not just in terms of exposures, but running their practices. And then ultimately, with my product hat on, that could or could not end up in a product that would meet their needs. So from our perspective, the feedback that that directly shapes into our innovation and product development process, you know, along with our white glove service of SPDR One, is critical as we think about solutions for the advisor.

Ric: And so, talk about that a little bit more about the advisor engagement. Is this something where an advisor will raise their hand and say, here’s a product I need? Or are you turning to the advisor saying, here’s a product we’re thinking of creating, what are your thoughts? Talk about the chicken and egg element of this.

Mark: Yeah, it’s actually both approaches. It comes from holistically in terms of, you know, one of the things that we see is if an advisor has a problem, and then another advisor has the same problem, and then another advisor has a related problem, that’s to your early question – about trends versus fads. That’s how we start thinking about, well, hey, this seems to be trending as a … as a problem, how can we solve for it? Right? So, step one is listening to them, and, you know, I mentioned the Select Sector SPDR Premium Income fund suite that we launched earlier this year. That was actually driven directly from the Client Advisory Council. Okay? At the same time, we will road test and stress test our broader roadmap to those advisors, saying, hey, this is what we’re thinking about producing, this is the use case why. How would you think about it? And we’re not asking them, per se, to seed it, or anchor it, but we want to listen to their experiences to say, how would they think about it? How would they, invest in it? Which ultimately then allows us to continue to iterate, to provide the better solutions.

Ric: So having launched over 100 products in the past 2 years, and adding that to the roster of hundreds of products already available at State Street, as you mentioned, you know, you’re one of the largest asset managers in the world, one of the most robust rosters of investment products available. It’s impossible, really, for a typical advisor to keep up, you know, to be aware of the broad array of products that are available, let alone to pay attention to the new products that are being launched. So, how would you recommend advisors approach this? I suspect, from what you said earlier, the advisor shouldn’t simply go onto State Street’s site and scan it looking for product ideas, that they ought to be talking to the State Street experts, saying here’s the problem I’m trying to solve for my client, and let you folks provide some guidance as to which of that massive array of products available might be what the advisor’s looking for. Does that sound about right?

Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Look, we have a great client coverage group that focuses on financial advisors, right? And they’re out in the field every single day, listening and talking to their clients. And as they have those conversations, you know, ultimately, the conversation could be as simple as, hey, I wish I could have fixed income exposure, but a lower cost. Right? And that’s a very easy conversation to have. Or it could say, hey, I would like to have an exposure which gives a little bit more resilience, it sits in my portfolio, and then my coverage group would provide a product that we recently launched, the Bridgewater All Weather ETF, and could allow them to consider that. But really, where I find the most useful conversation is on that third bucket, which is are there really areas that we can help you solve your problems? And then they bring my team in, they bring us in, and then we start really unpacking that in much more detail.

Ric: Unless you’ve experienced that over the years, in some cases, I think State Street has reached the conclusion that, yes, this is a trend, yes, there’s a high and growing demand by both investors and advisors. But State Street doesn’t have the in-house expertise to deliver on this, because it’s just something that State Street’s never engaged in, or perhaps something brand new, like crypto. And in that instance. you’ve gone out and established partnerships. Rather than saying, we’re gonna pretend we know what we’re doing, when in fact maybe we don’t, or we don’t know it best, we’re gonna work with outsiders, third parties, bring them in-house through a partnership and deliver the product that way. So talk about your approach to partnerships, why you do that, and how you know you found the right partner, when that’s the right path to take.

Mark: Yeah, absolutely. So that was actually one of the things that really excited me about joining State Street Investment Management in my role as Global Head of Product and Strategic Partnerships, because, you know, we’re one of the few that I would say is we’re very comfortable partnering – you know, we know what we’re great at. We’ve pioneered ETFs with SPY, we’re great at indexing. But it also means that when we have a client that may need a different solution, right? We’re really comfortable finding that partner who has best-in-class capabilities that ultimately allows us to give a much better solution than if we just try to do it ourselves. So when I think about partnering, it starts with, first of all, trying to find that best-in-class partner. Secondly, it’s finding that partner who has a strong brand, okay? And what do I mean by about a strong brand? Well, as you know, brand is earned over many, many, many years, but can be lost instantaneously. So, if I can find someone who has a strong brand and cultivates that brand, that sounds like a really good partner to work with State Street Investment Management in. So, a recent example of that is actually when we did partner with Bridgewater Associates. You know, March 2025, we launched our SPDR Bridgewater All-Weather ETF, ticker ALLW, and the thought process was very simple. In 1996, Bridgewater pioneered their approach to risk parity investing, right? Which ultimately allowed clients to enhance their portfolio through diversification, but achieve long-term, capital appreciation. So we thought, well, why not take that? Given the rise in private markets, why not take that and package that into an ETF such that not just for sophisticated institutional clients getting access, but everybody could get access and get those benefits. So that’s sort of an example from a product partnership perspective. From a capability perspective, another great example is Ethic. You know with Ethic, our partnership is focused about recognizing that financial advisors need cost-effective, tax-aware, personalized solutions at scale, right? And ultimately, that allows us not to just offer ETFs as models, but ultimately direct indexing through SMAs, UMAs, all on Ethic’s, cutting-edge technology platform.

Ric: You did a similar partnership with Galaxy.

Mark: Yeah, and Galaxy, again, was a great example. You know, some people could say, look, it’s just a thematic ETF, that holds crypto-type companies. But I think the excitement for us, when we looked to partner with Galaxy is we were working with folks that they live and breathe crypto day in, day out. They are in that industry. They recently just, IPO’d on the NASDAQ. That is the one thing they focus on. They know how the industry works, they know who does what, so to create ETFs using their capabilities was a no-brainer. And ultimately, we think it made it a better solution for the end investor.

Ric: And it gives the I think, all these partnerships, the confidence of knowing they’re not only getting a great organization that has deep subject matter knowledge, but they’re also getting the wrapper of State Street with the brand, reliability, confidence, history, robustness, that can give, I think, additional extra comfort and confidence for both the advisor and their clients. That seems to make a whole lot of sense. I want to go back to the private markets. You’ve mentioned it a couple of times. Obviously, as we all know, private markets are all over the news. There’s talk about them being introduced into 401Ks. We’re seeing greater and greater interest in access by the ordinary, average, everyday retail investor. Talk about your view of the private markets idea, and everything going on that we’re hearing about.

Mark: Yeah, absolutely, Ric. So, you know, we started our conversation, this morning around democratizing access to investing, right? And ultimately, that’s in your DNA, it’s our DNA at State Street Investment Management as well, where, you know, we pioneered ETFs through S&P 500, gold, sector, etc. And when we think about private markets, to your point, we see lots of structural tailwinds coming from Washington. We see a lot of excited content providers, wanting to provide access to their exposures and I think there’s sort of broad alignment, not just from a research, but also from a financial and pragmatic perspective, that adding privates in your portfolio is a pretty good diversifier over time. So, you know what, I was recently at an industry event, when we were having this exact conversation around private markets. And the conversations are focused around the need to democratize or not. And to me, it was an interesting conversation, because, look, I have friends who are teachers, right? And if I think about them, they get access to privates because they have a pension. That pension invests in private markets. That portfolio gets the diversification benefits, and ultimately the teacher gets that benefit.

Ric: True.

Mark: But then I think, sort of closer to home, my mother-in-law, she’s an independent contractor down in Atlanta, Georgia, right? She doesn’t have a pension. I wish she had a pension. She doesn’t have a pension. And my view is, well, why can’t she get the same access and the same benefits of a private market? So, to me, that’s sort of the inspiration of trying to, in the right way, give access to private markets in various different wrappers, such as in ETFs. And, you know, as we touched on earlier in our conversation today, we’ve begun that at State Street through ETFs, you know, I mentioned the Bridgewater All-Weather ETF earlier, right? We were the first to include private credit in an ETF through our launch of PRIV and PRSD in September. And then beyond the ETF wrapper, you know, we were first in the market to put this within our State Street Target Retirement Index Plus series, where ultimately, a target date, glide path had an allocation to private markets. Again, all driven by the potential diversification benefits that private markets provide you. So, this is something that we’re doing today. And we’re constantly thinking about how to do it in the future, not just in the ETF wrapper, but also we’re looking at other wrappers, such as interval funds, private funds, etc.

Ric: Are you expecting the private market investment opportunity to expand in the future?

Mark: It’s a great question. I believe so, but I want to say we’re at the early innings. You know, I bring myself back to the early stage of my career, you know, when I was an equity derivative trader, I was actually on the fund derivative trading desk, and, you know, that was mid-2000s, when there was a lot of excitement about providing access to hedge fund-like strategies, either physically or synthetically. And you know, I think the lessons learned from that is doing it in a thoughtful way, making sure everything works, but ultimately, we also need a few, what I would say, markets to be favorable. I.e, what happened in mid-2000s was that in 2007, 2008, a financial crisis hit. And then a lot of considerations people had, suddenly had to get reprioritized. So, I think if we have stable markets, you’ll probably see a lot more innovation growing very quickly in this space, but if the markets become a little bit rocky, I think our focus, rightly. We’ll probably go elsewhere.

Ric: So eventually we’ll get there, but it may not be a straight line of growth.

Mark: Like in life, Ric, correct.

Ric: Yeah, yeah, up and to the right, but not necessarily a straight line. Expand that, then, that thought, to ETFs generally. I mean, we know how ETFs have transformed the financial landscape, the marketplace. We know why everybody loves ETFs. The advantages over mutual funds are well-known, well documented, and we know that they have really taken the marketplace by storm over the past decade. What’s next for ETFs?

Mark: So, look, I think in terms of what’s next for ETFs, it’s continuing to figure out how to provide and democratize access to investing. And maybe I should take one step back in terms of you know to me, an ETF is one of these timeless innovations, right? It’s a little bit like, I happen to be holding here a ballpoint pen, but a ballpoint pen was first, you know, invented back in 1938. It’s durable, it’s relatively cheap. It comes in many different colors, shapes, and sizes, but I know, ultimately, when I want to write something down, it will work, right? And that’s how I actually think about the ETF wrapper. It’s this wonderful wrapper that has many different uses from many different clients. From people who want liquid building blocks, people want to implement it in model portfolios, through individual investors who simply want the lowest cost, suite available. And to me, the future for ETFs is continue to expand the use cases, but also expand the exposures, but doing it in the right way, at the right time.

Ric: Do you see crypto and ETFs merging through tokenization?

Mark: Look, I do, and people have started to look at it, both as traditional issuers, but actually, you know, someone has actually tokenized one of our ETFs, SRLN. We didn’t know about it. So it’s happening. I think what, to me, is interesting about tokenization is ultimately, what will tokenization bring? What is the addition, what is the benefit that it will provide? And it could be as simple as. When you think about tokenization, a lot of people in crypto, they like accessing things through a digital wallet, right? So if you tokenize it on one of their chains, it’s just the way they’re used to dealing with the world. So I think there’s a lot more there to unpack, and I think it’s definitely going to be an interesting, few months and few years ahead of us in that space.

Ric: Yeah, I think you said it best earlier about how the proper investment innovation begins with the question, what problem am I trying to solve? So, tokenizing something, for the sake of tokenizing it, doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. But if we can deliver a solution that’s currently eluding us, such as cheaper, or safer, or faster, then there’s an argument for moving toward tokenization. But that case has to be made, and we have to be able to do it, again, with that bridge analogy, with everybody very, very confident that bridge will not collapse. And so, to your point, we may get there, but it’s not gonna be, tomorrow. But it’s something to keep our eye on. Just like everything else is something to keep our eye on. And that’s, I think, one of the most fundamental attributes and benefits that advisors have in turning to State Street. A high degree of confidence that you’ve got, your check on this pulse. You know what’s happening in the marketplace, you are observing the trends. In some cases, you folks are creating them, and I think that provides a lot of confidence for advisors to be paying a lot of attention, spending a lot of time with you and your colleagues at State Street Investment Management. Any final thoughts, Mark, that you’d like to share?

Mark: Look, I’d just like to wrap it up in sort of two ways. Firstly, Ric, you’ve done a great job, you know, as always, democratizing and educating people on the importance of investing. So, thank you so much for having me here today. And, you know, secondly, you know, when we think about innovation, it always comes back to listening to our clients. Making sure that we don’t have something today off the shelf that meets their needs, because if it does, we shouldn’t be creating something new. And if not, then working together to really unpack what are they trying to solve, and then how to do it in the most responsible way, such that we create the best outcome for them. So it’s always with the clients first.

Ric: Well, that’s a pretty profound way to end this conversation, Mark. Thanks so much. That’s Mark Alberici. He is the Global Head of Product Innovation at State Street Investment Management, I encourage you to contact your local State Street rep who can provide you with greater access and assistance in everything that you’re trying to do to build your business. Thanks so much for joining us, we’ll see you again next time.

Mark: Thanks, Ric.

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Apollo is not a sponsor, distributor, promoter, or investment adviser to PRIV. Apollo has entered into a contractual agreement with the Fund whereby it is obligated to provide firm bids on asset backed and corporate finance instruments sourced by Apollo (each an “AOS Investment”) to the Fund on a daily basis at certain intervals and is required to repurchase AOS Investments that the Fund has purchased at the firm bid price offered by Apollo, subject to, but not limited to, contractual levels designed to cover the estimated seven-day stress redemption rate as of the date hereof. The sale of AOS Investments to Apollo is not exclusive and the Fund may seek to sell AOS Investments to other counterparties.

Investing in high yield fixed income securities, otherwise known as “junk bonds”, is considered speculative and involves greater risk of loss of principal and interest than investing in investment grade fixed income securities. These Lower-quality debt securities involve greater risk of default or price changes due to potential changes in the credit quality of the issuer.

Privately issued securities are securities that have not been registered under the Securities Act and as a result are subject to legal restrictions on resale. Privately issued securities are not traded on established markets and may be illiquid, difficult to value and subject to wide fluctuations in value. Limitations on the resale of these securities may have an adverse effect on their market ability, and may prevent the Fund from disposing of them promptly at reasonable prices. Private credit can range in credit quality depending on a variety of factors, including total leverage, amount of leverage senior to the security in question, variability in the issuer’s cash flows, the size of the issuer, the quality of assets securing debt and the degree to which such assets cover the subject company’s debt obligations. In addition, there can be no assurance that the Adviser will be able to secure all of the investment opportunities that it identifies for the Fund, or that the size of an investment opportunity available to the Fund will be as large as the Adviser would desire, on account of general economic conditions, specific market developments, or other circumstances outside of the Adviser’s control.

PRIV and PRSD may hold securities that have not been registered for sale to the public under the U.S. federal securities laws. There can be no assurance that a trading market will exist at any time for any particular restricted security. Limitations on the resale of these securities may have an adverse effect on their market ability, and may prevent the Fund from disposing of them promptly at reasonable prices. The Fund may have to bear the expense of registering the securities for resale and the risk of substantial delays in effecting the registration. Also, restricted securities may be difficult to value because market quotations may not be readily available, and the securities may have significant volatility.

Investments in private funds are subject to the risks of the underlying investments held by the private fund. Private funds are not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and therefore, an investor in such fund is not subject to its regulatory protections. Generally, little public information exists on the portfolio holdings of a private fund which means the private fund may be employing investment strategies not known to the Adviser. Investments in private funds are considered illiquid and may be difficult to value.

Liquidity Risk: Lack of a ready market, stressed market conditions, restrictions on resale, or certain market environments may limit the ability of the Fund to sell an investment at an advantageous time or price or at all. Illiquid investments may trade at a discount from comparable, more liquid investments and may be subject to wide fluctuations in market value. If the liquidity of the Fund’s holdings deteriorates, it may lead to differences between the market price of Fund Shares and the net asset value of Fund Shares, and could result in the Fund Shares being less liquid. Illiquidity of the Fund’s holdings may also limit the ability of the Fund to obtain cash to meet redemptions on a timely basis. In addition, the Fund, due to limitations on investments in any illiquid investments and/or the difficulty in purchasing and selling such investments, may be unable to achieve its desired level of exposure to a certain market or sector. Further, if counterparties are unwilling to purchase AOS Investments, AOS Investments that were deemed liquid by the Adviser may become illiquid.

Counterparty Risk: The Fund will be subject to credit risk with respect to the counterparties with which the Fund enters into derivatives contracts, repurchase agreements, reverse repurchase agreements, and other transactions. If a counterparty fails to meet its contractual obligations, the Fund may be unable to terminate or realize any gain on the investment or transaction, or to recover collateral posted to the counterparty, resulting in a loss to the Fund. If the Fund holds collateral posted by its counterparty, it may be delayed or prevented from realizing on the collateral in the event of a bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding relating to the counterparty.

Valuation Risk: Some portfolio holdings, potentially a large portion of the Fund’s investment portfolio, may be valued on the basis of factors other than market quotations. This may occur more often in times of market turmoil or reduced liquidity. There are multiple methods that can be used to value a portfolio holding when market quotations are not readily available. The value established for any portfolio holding at a point in time might differ from what would be produced using a different methodology or if it had been priced using market quotations. Portfolio holdings that are valued using techniques other than market quotations, including “fair valued” securities, may be subject to greater fluctuation in their valuations from one day to the next than if market quotations were used. In addition, there is no assurance that the Fund could sell or close out a portfolio position for the value established for it at any time, and it is possible that the Fund would incur a loss because a portfolio position is sold or closed out at a discount to the valuation established by the Fund at that time.

Investments in Senior Loans are subject to credit risk and general investment risk. Credit risk refers to the possibility that the borrower of a Senior Loan will be unable and/or unwilling to make timely interest payments and/or repay the principal on its obligation. Default in the payment of interest or principal on a Senior Loan will result in a reduction in the value of the Senior Loan and consequently a reduction in the value of the Portfolio’s investments and a potential decrease in the net asset value (“NAV”) of the Portfolio.

Bonds generally present less short-term risk and volatility than stocks, but contain interest rate risk (as interest rates rise, bond prices usually fall); issuer default risk; issuer credit risk; liquidity risk; and inflation risk. These effects are usually pronounced for longer-term securities. Any fixed income security sold or redeemed prior to maturity may be subject to a substantial gain or loss.

Intellectual Property Information: The S&P 500^® Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC or its affiliates (“S&P DJI”) and have been licensed for use by State Street Global Advisors. S&P^®, SPDR^®, S&P 500^®, US 500 and the 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC (“S&P”); Dow Jones^® is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC (“Dow Jones”) and has been licensed for use by S&P Dow Jones Indices; and these trademarks have been licensed for use by S&P DJI and sublicensed for certain purposes by State Street Global Advisors. The fund is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by S&P DJI, Dow Jones, S&P, their respective affiliates, and none of such parties make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in such product(s) nor do they have any liability for any errors, omissions, or interruptions of these indices. Bridgewater^® and All Weather^® are registered trademarks of Bridgewater^® Associates, LP.

Distributor: State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors (“SSGA FD”), LLC, member FINRA, SIPC, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of State Street Corporation. References to State Street may include State Street Corporation and its affiliates. Certain State Street affiliates provide services and receive fees from the SPDR ETFs. State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC is the distributor for certain registered products on behalf of the advisor. SSGA Funds Management has retained Blackstone Liquid Credit Strategies LLC as the sub-advisor. State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC is not affiliated with Blackstone Liquid Credit Strategies LLC.

Bridgewater provides a daily model portfolio to SSGA Funds Management Inc. (SSGA FM) based on their proprietary All Weather^® asset allocation approach. The model portfolio is specific to the Fund. Based on Bridgewater’s investment recommendations, SSGA FM purchases and sells securities and/or instruments for the Fund. SSGA FM seeks to implement Bridgewater’s investment recommendations, but may change the Fund’s investment allocation at any time.

(“SSGA FM”) is the adviser of the ALLW and has retained Bridgewater Associates, LP (“Bridgewater”) as a sub-adviser. ALPS Distributors, Inc., member FINRA, is distributor for SPDR^® S&P 500^®, SPDR^® S&P MidCap 400^® and SPDR^® Dow Jones Industrial Average, all unit investment trusts. ALPS Distributors, Inc. is not affiliated with State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC. State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.

Before investing, consider the funds’ investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. To obtain a prospectus or summary prospectus which contains this and other information, call 1-866-787-2257 or visit ssga.com. Read it carefully.

© 2025 State Street Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC, One Congress Street, Boston, MA 02114

Not FDIC Insured • No Bank Guarantee • May Lose Value

8543783.2.1.AM.RTL
Exp Date: 10/31/2026

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