AHYB vs SCYB

AHYBBAmerican Century Select High Yield ETF

SCYBASchwab High Yield Bond ETF

In short

AHYB Most high-yield ETFs just buy the index and hand you the whole junk market. AHYB pays a team to pick instead: an active bond portfolio measured against the BB-B slice, for 0.45% a year.

SCYB Three basis points for the broad US high-yield corporate market. Schwab undercuts a category where the typical fund charges more than ten times as much, spreading the bet across roughly 1,800 bonds and paying monthly.

Stated mandate

AHYB The fund seeks high current income. Under normal conditions, it invests at least 80% of net assets plus investment borrowings in high-yield debt securities and actively allocates across high-yield corporate bonds.

SCYB The fund follows a rules-based strategy intended to track the high-yield bond market, primarily through bonds in the Bloomberg Barclays US Corporate High Yield Total Return Index and similar derivatives.

Why people hold it

• AHYB Genuinely active: keeps at least 80% of assets in high-yield debt and shifts allocations across corporate bonds rather than replicating a fixed list.
• Measured against the ICE BofA US High Yield Constrained (BB-B) Index, the BB and B tiers, not the whole junk market down to CCC.
• Spread across roughly 600 bonds, so one blown-up issuer is a scratch, not a crater.
• What it owns lines up closely with what the prospectus promises, and it lands in the upper half of a crowded high-yield ETF field.

• SCYB 0.03% a year against a category median of 0.40%. Even the cheap rivals sit above it: SPHY at 0.05%, USHY at 0.08%.
• Tracks the same Bloomberg US Corporate High Yield index as BKHY, which charges 0.22%. Same map, cheaper toll.
• Roughly 1,800 bonds, so no single issuer's blowup drives the outcome. Rules-based and passive, and it has hugged its index closely.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively and pays monthly, which matters in a corner of the market where getting out cheaply is half the job.

Worth knowing

• AHYB At 0.45%, it costs real money next to index rivals like SCYB (0.03%) and SPHY (0.05%). The active calls carry that gap.
• Thinly traded, so bid-ask spreads matter more here than with the category's heavyweights.
• Launched in 2021 with a modest asset base: a shorter record and smaller footprint than the giants it competes with.

• SCYB High yield means below-investment-grade credit. These bonds behave more like stocks than Treasuries when the economy sours, and the extra income is the payment for that risk.
• Launched in 2023, so it has a shorter record than rivals that have traded through more credit cycles.
• The strategy can hold derivatives alongside the bonds themselves to track the index, one layer beyond plain bond ownership.

Full AHYB profile⁠

Full SCYB profile⁠