Starting July 4, 2026, every eligible American child under 18 gets a government-funded investment account seeded with $1,000. The catch: that money can only go into ultra-cheap index funds tracking US equities, and one particular ETF just landed the most enviable gig in asset management.
The State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, ticker SPYM, has been designated as the mandatory default investment for all Trump Account contributions at launch. With an expense ratio of just 0.02%, it’s essentially free to own, which is exactly the point.
How Trump Accounts actually work
Created under the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act as part of the Working Families Tax Cuts provisions, Trump Accounts are tax-deferred investment vehicles designed exclusively for US citizen children under 18. Each eligible child receives a $1,000 government seed contribution. Families can then add their own money on top, with contribution caps indexed to inflation so the limits grow over time.
During the account’s growth period, the only allowable investments are low-cost broad US equity index ETFs and mutual funds with expense ratios capped at 0.10%. SPYM starts as the sole initial option, though the Treasury has approved a handful of additional ETFs that will become available later: the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), iShares Core S&P Total US Stock Market ETF (ITOT), Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), and SPDR Portfolio S&P 1500 Composite Stock Market ETF (SPTM).
