BKAG vs FTCB

BKAGABNY Mellon Core Bond ETF

FTCBCFirst Trust Core Investment Grade ETF

In short

BKAG A core bond index fund that charges nothing. BKAG tracks the same Bloomberg US Aggregate benchmark the giants track, at a 0.00% expense ratio, and has been doing it since 2020.

FTCB First Trust's take on the core bond sleeve: roughly 300 investment-grade bonds, no index to hug, income paid monthly. You pay up for a manager making the calls instead of a benchmark doing it for free.

Stated mandate

BKAG The fund seeks to track the Bloomberg US Aggregate Total Return Index.

FTCB The fund seeks long-term total return and normally invests its entire investment portfolio in investment-grade securities.

Why people hold it

• BKAG A 0.00% expense ratio. The median fund in the core bond group charges 0.36%, and even the cheap giants (BND, SPAB, SCHZ) charge 0.03%.
• Tracks the Bloomberg US Aggregate Total Return Index tightly, one of the closest index-following records in its peer group.
• Broad by design: roughly 4,000 bonds in the portfolio, with distributions paid monthly rather than quarterly.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund from BNY Mellon, wrapped in a standard 1940 Act ETF structure with no exotic mechanics.

• FTCB Does what the label says. The mandate keeps the entire portfolio in investment-grade securities, and the fund has stayed tightly inside that brief.ftportfolios.com
• Pays monthly, spread across roughly 300 bonds, so income lands on a steady rhythm rather than in quarterly lumps.
• Launched in 2023 and already a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so size and liquidity are not the weak links here.

Worth knowing

• BKAG Rate risk is the trade-off. This is full-market bond exposure, and bond prices move opposite interest rates. Volatility is the weakest part of its profile.
• Moderately traded, not one of the volume monsters in the category. Spreads and limit orders matter more here than with the largest core bond names.
• At zero, the fee edge over 0.03% rivals is real but small in dollar terms, so tracking and trading costs do more of the work.

• FTCB Fee is the headline trade-off: 0.56% a year, above the typical core-bond fund, while index staples like BND, SPAB and SCHZ charge 0.03%.
• No declared index to measure the manager against. The shape of the portfolio is the team's call, within the investment-grade mandate.
• It sits in the intermediate-term bond lane. Investment grade trims credit risk; it does nothing about the pull of interest rates.

Full BKAG profile⁠

Full FTCB profile⁠