FXC vs FXY

FXCCInvesco CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar Trust

FXYCInvesco CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust

In short

FXC The plain-vanilla loonie trade: FXC holds actual Canadian dollars in a London bank account, no futures, no swaps, and has done it that way since 2006. A foreign-currency account you can buy in a brokerage window.

FXY The yen, in a brokerage account. FXY is a grantor trust that has held Japanese yen since 2007 and aims to reflect the currency's dollar price plus accrued interest, after trust expenses. One moving part.

Stated mandate

FXC The Trust seeks to reflect the U.S.-dollar price of the Canadian Dollar, plus any accrued interest and after Trust expenses. It is intended to provide a direct, cost-effective way to obtain investment exposure similar to holding Canadian Dollars.

FXY The Trust seeks to have its shares reflect the U.S.-dollar price of the Japanese yen, plus accrued interest, less the Trust’s operating expenses.

Why people hold it

• FXC Physically backed: real Canadian dollars sit in a JPMorgan Chase London deposit account, no derivatives involved, with the trust's holdings posted every business day.sec.gov
• Trading since 2006 and built for one job: exposure similar to holding Canadian dollars, without opening a separate currency account.
• The cash can earn interest. It accrues daily on the trust's primary deposit account, and the trust distributes monthly.sec.gov
• Fee sits at 0.40% a year, even with the median single-currency fund. Nobody in this corner is undercutting anybody.

• FXY Simple by design: a grantor trust built to give investors benefits similar to holding yen itself, so there is no index to track and no futures ladder to roll.
• Listed since 2007, which means a long public record across multiple yen cycles rather than a fund that showed up after the story got popular.
• Moderately traded, and one of the stronger implementations in a small cohort of single-currency funds.

Worth knowing

• FXC Thinly traded, so what you pay to get in and out can matter more than the 0.40% fee.
• The depository sets the interest rate and can move it to zero or below zero, which would shrink or halt what flows through to shareholders.sec.gov
• One currency, no cushion: the whole ride is the Canadian dollar against the US dollar, and the money sits in deposit accounts at a single bank.sec.gov

• FXY This is one exchange rate and nothing else. Moves in the dollar price of the yen come through directly, with no stocks or bonds underneath to soften them.
• Income is not the mechanism. Interest accrues inside the trust and expenses come off the top, and the trust has not been making distributions.
• The 0.40% fee is the going rate across the CurrencyShares lineup (FXE, FXB, FXF) and the cohort median, so cost is not the tiebreaker here.

Full FXC profile⁠

Full FXY profile⁠