FCOR vs VTC

FCORCFidelity Corporate Bond ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

FCOR Fidelity's in-house take on corporate credit: roughly 400 investment-grade corporate bonds picked without a declared index to follow, with income paid out monthly. The trade-off is price, in a category where the index giants charge pennies.

VTC Most cheap corporate bond funds sell you one slice of the maturity curve. VTC buys the whole investment-grade corporate market, short to long, for 0.03% a year, and since 2025 it owns the bonds directly instead of stacking three Vanguard funds.

Stated mandate

FCOR The fund seeks a high level of current income and normally invests at least 80% of its assets in investment-grade corporate bonds and related corporate debt securities.

VTC The Fund seeks to track a broad, market-weighted corporate bond index, specifically the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index. It uses an indexing approach focused on investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• FCOR Does exactly what the label says: at least 80% of assets in investment-grade corporate bonds and related corporate debt, with current income as the stated goal.fidelity.com
• Roughly 400 bonds under the hood and a monthly distribution schedule, so income lands on a regular cadence instead of quarterly.
• No declared index behind it. The portfolio reflects Fidelity's own credit calls rather than a benchmark's rulebook, and it has stayed tight to its stated corporate mandate.
• Launched in 2014, so this is a seasoned fund with a full credit cycle behind it, not a recent product-shelf addition.

• VTC 0.03% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. On this exact Bloomberg index, nothing in the group charges less.
• One ticker, the full corporate curve. Top-graded rivals like VCIT, IGIB and IGSB each buy a single maturity band; VTC's index spans short, intermediate and long fixed-rate corporates.
• No overlays, no active tilts, no credit guesswork. Market-weighted indexing of investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporates, and the portfolio hews tightly to that mandate.
• Income lands monthly, not quarterly, which matters if bond coupons are doing real work in your cash flow.

Worth knowing

• FCOR The 0.36% expense ratio is the headline trade-off: the biggest indexed rivals in this space, VCIT and USIG, charge 0.03% and 0.04%.
• Trades lightly next to the category's heavyweights, which can mean wider bid-ask spreads, especially on larger orders.
• Add up cost and trading friction and it sits in the lower half of the investment-grade corporate bond field on our read.

• VTC Whole-curve means long bonds in the mix, so prices move more with interest rates than a 1-5 year slice like IGSB does.
• The plumbing changed in March 2025: Vanguard moved it from holding three underlying corporate bond ETFs to buying the index bonds directly. Same objective, same index.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume heavyweight, so spreads can run wider than the busiest corporate bond funds, particularly in choppy markets.

Full FCOR profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠