FTSL vs SEIX

FTSLCFirst Trust Senior Loan Fund

SEIXBVirtus Seix Senior Loan ETF

In short

FTSL Most funds in the high-yield aisle own fixed-coupon junk bonds. FTSL owns first-lien senior bank loans whose coupons float with short-term rates, chosen by a live credit team instead of an index rulebook, with income paid monthly.

SEIX Most funds in this corner of the bond market buy fixed-rate high-yield bonds and follow an index. SEIX does neither: an actively picked book of senior loans built around one job, a high level of current income, paid out monthly.

Stated mandate

FTSL The fund seeks high current income and secondarily aims to preserve capital. It normally invests at least 80% of net assets in first-lien senior floating-rate bank loans, primarily to North American businesses.

SEIX The Fund seeks to provide a high level of current income.

Why people hold it

• FTSL First-lien senior floating-rate bank loans: the coupons reset with short-term rates, and the debt sits at the top of the borrower's capital structure.ftportfolios.com
• Actively managed, so a credit team picks the loans rather than following a bank-loan index, spread across roughly 220 positions.
• Trading since 2013 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that pays monthly, with a track record spanning both rate hikes and cuts.
• The stated mission is plain: high current income first, capital preservation second. A different job than chasing total return.

• SEIX Senior loans, not high-yield bonds. A different slice of corporate credit than the index trackers that dominate this category.
• Actively run, roughly 200 loans chosen by the Seix credit team rather than whatever a benchmark happens to hold.
• Cash lands monthly, which matches a mandate written around current income rather than price appreciation.
• Trading since 2019, mid-sized, and moderately traded day to day, so the strategy has a real operating history behind it.

Worth knowing

• FTSL At 0.70% a year it sits above the group's roughly 0.40% median and multiples of index rivals like SCYB and SPHY, putting it near the back of its high-yield peer group on cost.
• Floating coupons cut both ways: monthly income follows short-term rates up, and follows them back down.
• These are leveraged corporate loans, so borrower defaults, not interest-rate swings, do most of the damage to capital here.ftportfolios.com

• SEIX 0.57% a year, above the 0.40% category norm and far above index trackers like SCYB at 0.03% or SPHY at 0.05%. Hand-picked loan credit carries a price tag.
• No declared index to measure against. Outcomes ride on the manager's loan selection, so the usual tracking yardstick doesn't apply.
• It is grouped with high-yield bond funds, so side-by-side comparisons line up the risk bucket, not the instrument being bought.

Full FTSL profile⁠

Full SEIX profile⁠