FLDR vs SCHJ

FLDR—Fidelity Low Duration Bond Factor ETF

SCHJASchwab 1-5 Year Corporate Bond ETF

In short

FLDR Most ultra-short bond funds are parking lots for cash. FLDR is the rules-based one: a Fidelity index of roughly 250 investment-grade bonds built to keep interest-rate sensitivity low, priced under the typical ultra-short fund.

SCHJ Short-dated corporate credit at index-fund pricing. SCHJ tracks the Bloomberg US 1-5 Year Corporate Bond Index for 0.03% a year, sits at the bottom of its category's fee table, and pays monthly.

Stated mandate

FLDR The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Fidelity Low Duration Investment Grade Factor Index.

SCHJ The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of an index measuring the short-term U.S. corporate bond market.

Why people hold it

• FLDR Charges 0.15% a year, below the 0.20% median for ultra-short bond funds and level with top-ranked peers SHV, PULS and DUSB.
• Rules first, hunches never. It passively tracks the published Fidelity Low Duration Investment Grade Factor Index, so the recipe is written down.
• Pays monthly and spreads the work across about 250 investment-grade holdings, so no single issuer carries the portfolio.
• Live since 2018 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund, it stands among the stronger implementations in its ultra-short bond peer group.

• SCHJ 0.03% a year, against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. No peer in the cohort charges less.
• Thousands of individual bonds in the basket, so no single issuer's trouble moves the fund much.
• The 1-5 year maturity ceiling means less price swing per move in rates than intermediate corporate funds like VCIT or IGIB, which sit further out the curve.
• Interest is passed through monthly rather than quarterly, and the fund ranks in the top quartile of its investment-grade corporate peer group overall.

Worth knowing

• FLDR Low duration is not zero duration. The mandate keeps rate sensitivity short, but the share price still moves. This is a bond ETF, not a money market fund.
• The index is investment-grade credit, not pure government paper like SHV's Treasury sleeve, so credit conditions feed into the price.
• Moderately traded rather than a volume monster, so spreads can run wider than the largest cash-parking ETFs.

• SCHJ This is company debt, not Treasuries. Downgrades and defaults are part of the deal, and short maturities shrink that risk without erasing it.
• A mid-size fund with moderate trading volume, so spreads can run wider than at the category's giants. Limit orders matter more here.
• Launched in 2019, so its record is shorter than rivals that traded through earlier credit cycles.

Full FLDR profile⁠

Full SCHJ profile⁠