EVHY vs SPHY

EVHYBEaton Vance High Yield ETF

SPHYAState Street SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF

In short

EVHY A credit picker's junk bond fund. Eaton Vance's leveraged-credit desk builds the portfolio by hand, the prospectus caps the deepest-distress tier at 10% of net assets, and income goes out monthly. Trading since 2023.

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

EVHY The fund seeks a high level of current income and also pursues growth of income and capital.

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

• EVHY Active, but with guardrails written into the prospectus: at least 80% of net assets in high yield, and no more than 10% in bonds rated below B3/B-.eatonvance.com
• Up to 15% of net assets can sit in investment-grade bonds, giving the managers a quality lever most index trackers in this cohort do not have.eatonvance.com
• Pays monthly, and the portfolio has hewed closely to its stated high-yield income mandate rather than drifting.

• 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

• EVHY At 0.48% a year it costs more than the high yield median, and far more than index rivals like SCYB (0.03%), SPHY (0.05%) and USHY (0.08%). You are paying for the stock-picking.
• Small asset base and light trading volume, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the giant index funds in this category.
• Below-investment-grade bonds carry real default and liquidity risk, and this fund only launched in 2023, so its record is short.

• 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 EVHY profile⁠

Full SPHY profile⁠