BBSB vs SPTS

BBSBAJPMorgan BetaBuilders U.S. Treasury Bond 1-3 Year ETF

SPTSAState Street SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF

In short

BBSB A plain box of short Treasuries at 0.04%, well under what the category's longtime benchmark fund charges for the very same ICE index. About 90 bonds, monthly income, no story beyond the math.

SPTS U.S. Treasury notes maturing in one to three years, wrapped at three basis points. SPTS sits in the cheapest tier of the short-Treasury aisle, charging a fifth of the category median for the same plain-vanilla job.

Stated mandate

BBSB The fund seeks current income by tracking the ICE U.S. Treasury 1-3 Year Bond Index. It uses representative sampling to closely replicate the index's characteristics.

SPTS The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index before fees and expenses, providing exposure to U.S. Treasury securities with remaining maturities between 1 and 3 years.

Why people hold it

• BBSB Charges 0.04% a year, versus a 0.15% median for 1-3 year Treasury ETFs. On a parking-lot asset like this, fee is most of the controllable outcome.
• Tracks the ICE U.S. Treasury 1-3 Year Bond Index, the same benchmark iShares' SHY follows at 0.15%. Same bonds, same rules, a fraction of the toll.jpmorgan.com
• Representative sampling of roughly 90 Treasuries keeps it tight to the index, and it stays in its lane: U.S. government paper, one to three years, monthly distributions.

• SPTS Charges 0.03% a year against a 0.15% median for short-Treasury funds. On cash-like money, the fee line is the part that doesn't drift.
• Follows the Bloomberg 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index closely, one of the tightest index fits among its short-Treasury peers.ssga.com
• Roughly 100 U.S. Treasury notes and nothing else. No corporates, no mortgages, no credit surprises hiding in the basket. Distributions land monthly.
• Trading since 2011 and now a multi-billion-dollar, actively traded fund, so it isn't a thin newcomer you have to nurse in and out of.

Worth knowing

• BBSB Thinly traded. Bid-ask spread can outweigh the fee edge for short holding periods, so execution matters more here than with the category's giants.
• VGSH, SCHO and SPTS run the same short-Treasury job for 0.03%. The gap is a rounding error, but it is a gap.
• Launched in 2023 with a modest asset base, so it has a shorter operating history than the decades-old incumbents in this corner.

• SPTS Short maturities dampen price swings, they don't erase them. When short-term rates move, the fund's price and its payouts move too.
• Government paper only, so there's no credit spread in the income. The yield is whatever the front end of the Treasury curve is paying.
• VGSH and SCHO match the 0.03% fee on the same slice of the curve. Cost alone won't separate them; execution and platform access will.

Full BBSB profile⁠

Full SPTS profile⁠