CGIB vs SCHZ

CGIBCCapital Group International Bond ETF (USD-Hedged)

SCHZASchwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF

In short

CGIB Capital Group's active bond desk pointed overseas, with the currency layer hedged back to dollars. You get foreign bond selection without the euro and yen steering the outcome.

SCHZ Schwab's core bond holding: the broad U.S. investment-grade bond market, over 10,000 issues deep, for 0.03% a year. That is the floor of a category whose median fee is more than ten times higher. Running since 2011, pays monthly.

Stated mandate

CGIB The fund seeks a high level of current income while preserving capital, primarily through investments in bonds and other debt securities.

SCHZ The fund seeks to track the total return of an index representing the broad U.S. investment-grade bond market.

Why people hold it

• CGIB USD-hedged by design, so results ride on the bonds the managers pick rather than which way the dollar moves that quarter.
• Actively managed, not an index clone: under normal conditions at least 40% of assets sit outside the US, easing to 30% when the adviser reads conditions as unfavorable.
• The mandate is plain: high current income while preserving capital, run through bonds and other debt securities across roughly 200 positions.
• Pays monthly, so the income lands on a twelve-times-a-year rhythm instead of quarterly.

• SCHZ 0.03% a year sits at the category floor, against a cohort median of 0.36%. Only a short list of aggregate-bond funds matches it, including AGG, BND and SPAB.
• Tracks the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index tightly, one of the cleanest index implementations among the 187 funds in its peer group.schwabassetmanagement.com
• One ticker, thousands of investment-grade U.S. bonds, income paid monthly. The plumbing of a bond portfolio without buying a single bond yourself.
• Live since 2011 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so trading costs on ordinary retail-sized orders tend to be minor.

Worth knowing

• CGIB 0.45% a year is above the typical core bond fund, and the index heavyweights it shares a shelf with (BND at 0.03%, BNDX at 0.07%) charge a sliver of that.
• Launched in 2024, so the track record is short next to the decades-old core bond funds in its peer group, and it currently sits in the lower reaches of that group on our review.
• Hedging cuts both ways: it damps currency swings, which also means a weakening dollar won't add the lift an unhedged foreign bond fund can pick up.

• SCHZ This is duration exposure, not a cash substitute. Interest-rate moves, not credit selection, drive most of the ride, and that is the weakest part of its risk profile.
• Investment grade and U.S. only: no high-yield, no foreign bonds. Funds like BNDX cover the international side of the cohort.
• The aggregate-bond aisle is commoditized. Against AGG, BND and SPAB at the same 0.03%, the differences come down to index variant and where you already custody, not fee.

Full CGIB profile⁠

Full SCHZ profile⁠