FLTB vs SCHJ

FLTBDFidelity Limited Term Bond ETF

SCHJASchwab 1-5 Year Corporate Bond ETF

In short

FLTB Fidelity's short-bond ETF skips the index rulebook: a manager team picks 1-5 year corporate credit, using Fidelity's own blended yardstick as a guide rather than a cage. One of the original active bond ETFs, running since 2014.

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

FLTB The fund is a shorter-duration, investment-grade bond strategy focused primarily on U.S. corporate credit.

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

• FLTB Actively run since its 2014 launch, with Fidelity's blended 1-5 year credit, government and high-yield composite used as a guide for allocation, not a set of tracking handcuffs.fidelity.com
• The mandate reaches past plain investment grade: the guiding blend carries a slice of short-dated BB-B high yield alongside 1-5 year corporate and government debt.fidelity.com
• Short maturities mean smaller price swings when rates move than longer-dated bond funds carry, and income is paid out monthly.
• Spreads its credit risk across roughly 500 positions, so no single issuer carries the portfolio.

• 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

• FLTB It charges 0.25% a year, above the cohort median, while index rivals like IGSB, SPIB and VCIT run a few basis points. Active management is what the extra buys.
• Moderately traded and mid-sized rather than a volume giant, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than at the largest corporate bond ETFs.
• The latitude to hold high yield and non-index sectors adds credit risk you would not get from a pure investment-grade tracker.fidelity.comfidelity.com 2

• 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 FLTB profile⁠

Full SCHJ profile⁠