BBBS vs SCHJ

BBBSCBondBloxx BBB Rated 1-5 Year Corporate Bond ETF

SCHJASchwab 1-5 Year Corporate Bond ETF

In short

BBBS Most investment-grade bond funds blend AAA down to BBB. BBBS takes only the bottom rung, BBB rated corporates, and caps maturities under five years. A ratings dial you set yourself, not a grab bag.

SCHJ Short-dated corporate credit at index-fund pricing. SCHJ tracks the Bloomberg US 1-5 Year Corporate Bond Index for 0.03% a year, sits at the bottom of its category's fee table, and pays monthly.

Stated mandate

BBBS The Fund seeks to track the Bloomberg US Corporate BBB 1-5 Year Index, which represents taxable, fixed-rate, U.S. dollar-denominated BBB corporate bonds with remaining maturities from one to less than five years.

SCHJ The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of an index measuring the short-term U.S. corporate bond market.

Why people hold it

• BBBS One job, done narrowly: the index covers taxable, fixed-rate, dollar-denominated BBB corporate bonds maturing in one to under five years. Credit tier and maturity are both pinned down.
• Short maturities mean far less rate sensitivity than long-dated corporate funds, and the basket spreads across many issuers rather than leaning on a handful.
• Sits in the upper half of a crowded investment-grade corporate field of dozens of ETFs, and it tracks its stated Bloomberg index closely.

• SCHJ 0.03% a year, against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. No peer in the cohort charges less.
• Thousands of individual bonds in the basket, so no single issuer's trouble moves the fund much.
• The 1-5 year maturity ceiling means less price swing per move in rates than intermediate corporate funds like VCIT or IGIB, which sit further out the curve.
• Interest is passed through monthly rather than quarterly, and the fund ranks in the top quartile of its investment-grade corporate peer group overall.

Worth knowing

• BBBS The 0.19% fee is typical for investment-grade corporate ETFs, but broad short-term peers like IGSB and SPIB charge a small fraction of that for a wider credit mix.
• BBB is the last rung before high yield. Isolating it means more credit sensitivity than an all-grade fund that dilutes with AAA and AA paper.
• A small, thinly traded fund launched in 2024, so spreads can run wider than at the giants and distributions have not settled into a fixed rhythm.

• SCHJ This is company debt, not Treasuries. Downgrades and defaults are part of the deal, and short maturities shrink that risk without erasing it.
• A mid-size fund with moderate trading volume, so spreads can run wider than at the category's giants. Limit orders matter more here.
• Launched in 2019, so its record is shorter than rivals that traded through earlier credit cycles.

Full BBBS profile⁠

Full SCHJ profile⁠