AOHY vs SPHY

AOHYCAngel Oak High Yield Opportunities ETF

SPHYAState Street SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF

In short

AOHY An actively managed junk-bond fund in an aisle stacked with ultra-cheap index trackers. The mandate is income first, capital appreciation second, and the cash goes out monthly.

SPHY State Street's junk-bond workhorse: roughly 1,900 US high yield bonds in one wrapper for 0.05% a year, a fraction of what the typical high yield ETF charges, with income paid monthly.

Stated mandate

AOHY The fund seeks a high level of current income and, secondarily, capital appreciation.

SPHY The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the ICE BofA US High Yield Index.

Why people hold it

• AOHY Income is the job, not a byproduct: the fund seeks a high level of current income, with capital appreciation named only as a secondary goal.
• Distributions land monthly rather than quarterly, which lines up with how most people actually pay bills.
• The strategy predates the wrapper: this objective traces to a prospectus filed years before the ETF itself launched in 2024.
• Plain 1940 Act fund structure, and our review turned up no structural quirks to work around.

• SPHY 0.05% a year against a peer-group median about eight times higher. In high yield, the fee comes straight out of coupon income, so the gap does real work.
• Holds about 1,900 bonds tracking the ICE BofA US High Yield Index, broad enough that no single issuer's trouble dominates the portfolio.ssga.com
• Live since 2012, a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively and has stuck tightly to its stated index rather than drifting from the mandate.
• Distributions arrive monthly, in step with how the underlying coupons come in.

Worth knowing

• AOHY At 0.55% a year it sits above the 0.40% cohort median, and index rivals like SCYB (0.03%) and USHY (0.08%) charge a sliver of that. The premium buys the active call.
• It trades lightly next to the cohort's index heavyweights, so limit orders matter more here than with the big passive names.
• A 2024 launch means a short record, and on our overall read it lands in the lower half of the high yield group.

• SPHY This is below-investment-grade credit. Defaults and spread moves drive the price far more than Treasury yields do, and sell-offs in this asset class can be sharp.
• Fees here are already near the floor: SCYB lists 0.03% and HYLB matches at 0.05%, so the cost edge over the strongest peers is narrow.
• Scope is US high yield corporates, full stop. No investment-grade ballast, no emerging market debt, nothing to soften a credit drawdown from inside the fund.ssga.com

Full AOHY profile⁠

Full SPHY profile⁠