BOAT vs IYT

BOATDSonicShares Global Shipping ETF

IYTBiShares U.S. Transportation ETF

In short

BOAT The transportation aisle is mostly trucks, rails and planes. BOAT owns the boats: roughly 50 global container, dry bulk and tanker names that haul world trade, held through one passive shipping index.

IYT The original transports ETF: listed in 2003, tied to the Dow Jones Transportation Average until 2021, now tracking a capped S&P index of roughly 40 railroads, truckers, airlines and freight names.

Stated mandate

BOAT The Fund seeks to track the Solactive Global Shipping Index before fees and expenses using a passive indexing approach.

IYT The fund seeks to track the investment results of an index made up of U.S. transportation-sector equities. It uses representative sampling and generally invests at least 80% of assets in the index's component securities.

Why people hold it

• BOAT Pure-play maritime: container ships, dry bulk carriers and tankers in one ticker, the slice of global trade that truck-and-rail transport funds barely hold.globenewswire.com
• Rules-based and passive. It tracks the Solactive Global Shipping Index, so the book follows published index rules rather than a manager's hunch.
• Global by mandate, which matters in an industry where most shipowners list far from New York.globenewswire.com
• Distributions run on a quarterly cadence, and the portfolio stays compact at roughly 50 names.

• IYT Costs 0.37% a year with no waiver involved, below the median for its eight-fund transportation category and a hair above XTN's 0.35%.
• Trading since October 2003 and still one of the more actively traded funds in its category, a billion-dollar-plus fund in a corner of the market full of small ones.
• The index is float-cap weighted with a cap limiting how large any one stock can get, so a single giant railroad cannot swallow the fund. Large, mid and small caps all qualify.ishares.comspglobal.com
• One ticker for the whole freight complex: railroads, truckers, air freight and delivery, plus passenger airlines and ground transport.ishares.com

Worth knowing

• BOAT Costs 0.69% a year, above the transportation-fund median and well above broad options like IYT (0.38%) and XTN (0.35%).
• Thinly traded and modest in assets, so spreads can widen. Limit orders earn their keep here.
• Shipping is a freight-rate business: cyclical, concentrated in about 50 names, and bumpier than a diversified transport basket.

• IYT About 40 stocks in one cyclical sector. Moves with freight volumes, fuel and shipping rates, so it can wander far from the broad market for long stretches.
• The benchmark switched in July 2021 from the Dow Jones Transportation Average to the current S&P index, so older performance history reflects a different lineup.ishares.com
• Pays quarterly, but this is a sector equity fund: payouts follow whatever the holdings declare, not a set rate.

Full BOAT profile⁠

Full IYT profile⁠