AGG vs NUBD

AGGAiShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF

NUBDANuveen ESG U.S. Aggregate Bond

In short

AGG Launched in 2003, one of the first funds to pack the entire U.S. investment-grade bond market into a single ticker: Treasuries, corporates and mortgage bonds, three basis points a year, cash paid monthly.

NUBD The core bond index, run through an ESG filter. NUBD tracks a Bloomberg MSCI U.S. Aggregate ESG Select benchmark across roughly 2,400 investment-grade bonds, at a fraction of what the typical bond fund in its group charges.

Stated mandate

AGG The fund seeks to track the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, providing broad exposure to the total U.S. investment-grade bond market.

NUBD The Fund passively invests in diversified U.S. investment-grade bonds that meet environmental, social and governance criteria and seeks to track the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI U.S. Aggregate ESG Select Index before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• AGG 0.03% a year against a peer-group median near 0.36%. On a bond fund, the fee comes straight out of the coupon, so the gap matters more than it looks.
• A $100 billion-plus fund and very actively traded, the kind of depth that keeps bid-ask costs down for retail-sized orders.
• Tracks the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate closely, with one of the tightest index-following records in its peer group. Income is distributed monthly.
• Running since 2003, giving it one of the longest track records among U.S. bond index ETFs.

• NUBD 0.12% a year, versus a category median around 0.36%. In a low-yield asset class, that gap is most of what an investor actually controls.
• Live since 2017, making it one of the longer-running ESG-screened aggregate bond ETFs rather than a recent launch chasing the theme.
• Roughly 2,400 investment-grade bonds, so no single issuer drives the fund, and it pays monthly like a plain core bond holding.
• Clean mandate: a standard U.S. aggregate bond exposure with the ESG screen layered on top, and it ranks in the top quartile of a 187-fund aggregate bond group.

Worth knowing

• AGG Investment grade and U.S. dollar only. High-yield debt and foreign bonds sit outside the mandate, so this is designed as core ballast rather than a yield hunt.
• Rate risk comes as it comes. The index gets tracked whether yields rise or fall, with no manager stepping in to shorten duration.
• The same index is sold by SPAB, SCHZ and BBAG at the same 0.03%. The portfolio is the commodity here; scale and trading depth are the tiebreakers.

• NUBD The unscreened giants (BND, SPAB, SCHZ) run at 0.03%. The ESG screen carries a real, if small, price tag over vanilla aggregate exposure.
• Mid-sized and only moderately traded next to the household-name bond ETFs, which can show up as wider spreads at the point of trade.
• The screen changes which bonds it owns, not how it behaves: this is still a full aggregate mandate, so prices move with interest rates.

Full AGG profile⁠

Full NUBD profile⁠