CGHY vs SPHY

CGHYBCapital Group High Yield Bond ETF

SPHYAState Street SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF

In short

CGHY Capital Group's swing at high yield: an actively managed junk-bond fund with no index to follow, priced at 0.39% in a corner of the market where index rivals charge pennies.

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

CGHY The fund seeks a high level of current income, with capital appreciation as a secondary objective.

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

• CGHY Actively managed with no benchmark to replicate, so the credit team picks which issuers to own rather than buying whatever the index says.capitalgroup.com
• 0.39% expense ratio, just under the typical high-yield ETF's 0.40%. Rare for active management to price at the category median.
• Pays monthly, which suits the current-income job it was built for.
• The portfolio lines up closely with its stated high-yield mandate, and the fund sits in the upper half of a crowded field of 90-plus junk-bond ETFs.

• 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

• CGHY Index rivals are far cheaper: SCYB at 0.03% and SPHY at 0.05%. Active stock-picking in credit has to earn back that gap every year.
• Launched in 2025, so there is no long record of how these managers navigate a full credit cycle inside this wrapper.
• High yield means below-investment-grade credit, where issuer downgrades and default worries drive prices more than interest rates do.capitalgroup.com

• 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 CGHY profile⁠

Full SPHY profile⁠