A $576 Billion Stock-ETF Juggernaut Hit by Extreme Dislocations

One of the largest exchange-traded funds in the world was left at the widest premium to its underlying holdings since 2008 at the end of Wednesday’s historic session.

In another sign of the frantic trading on Wall Street, the $576 billion SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, or SPY, closed roughly 90 basis points above its net-asset value on a day when it surged 10.5% — the most in 16 years — data compiled by Bloomberg show. For comparison, SPY’s average dislocation to its NAV over the past decade is just a fraction of a basis point. The early Covid months of 2020 also saw it trade above or below its net-asset value, though none of those gaps were as wide as where Wednesday’s ended up.