AMZA vs OIH

AMZAFInfraCap MLP ETF

OIHBVanEck Oil Services ETF

In short

AMZA Most of the oil-and-gas aisle buys drillers through an index. AMZA runs a tight book of energy-infrastructure MLPs (the toll roads hydrocarbons travel on) and pays monthly. The boutique option in its cohort, priced like one.

OIH OIH skips the barrels and buys the picks and shovels: the drillers, equipment makers and service crews that get paid to punch holes in the ground. Roughly two dozen U.S.-listed names, running since 2011, priced below the energy-fund norm.

Stated mandate

AMZA The Fund seeks total return mainly through equity securities of publicly traded MLPs and partnership-taxed LLCs, with at least 80% of assets normally invested in MLPs operating in energy infrastructure.

OIH The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of an index representing U.S.-listed companies involved in upstream oil services, including oil equipment, oil services, and oil drilling.

Why people hold it

• AMZA Mandate keeps at least 80% of assets in MLPs operating energy infrastructure, so the exposure leans toward pipelines and storage rather than the wellhead economics most peers track.
• Distributions arrive monthly rather than quarterly, a cadence income-focused holders tend to want from an MLP sleeve.
• Trading since 2014, so it has run through a full energy cycle instead of showing up after the rebound. The book stays tight, roughly two dozen partnerships.

• OIH Owns the toolmakers, not the oil: upstream equipment, services and drilling companies. A different engine than a fund stuffed with producers.vaneck.com
• 0.35% a year, a shade under the typical fee in its energy cohort and level with XOP, the broad exploration-and-production alternative.
• A billion-dollar-plus fund whose trading quality rates among the best in its energy peer group, so getting in and out is rarely the expensive part.
• The lineup comes from a published rulebook, the MVIS US Listed Oil Services 25 Index, not a manager's hunch about which driller wins next.vaneck.com

Worth knowing

• AMZA The fee is the headline trade-off: 1.72% a year, several times the typical charge among oil-and-gas ETFs in its cohort.
• It trades thinly for its size. Limit orders and calm-market execution matter more here than with the cohort's heavily traded index funds.
• Roughly two dozen names in one corner of one sector means single-partnership news lands hard. On our review it sits in the back of its peer group.

• OIH Roughly two dozen stocks in one slice of one sector. That concentration cuts both ways and makes this the jumpier end of energy.
• You own contractors, not reserves. Their sales track what customers spend on drilling, which is a step removed from the oil price itself.vaneck.com
• Cash comes back once or twice a year at most, so income is a byproduct of the strategy rather than the point of it.

Full AMZA profile⁠

Full OIH profile⁠