FXY vs USDU

FXYCInvesco CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust

USDUCWisdomTree Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Bullish Fund

In short

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.

USDU Betting on the buck, but broadly: USDU is actively managed against a dollar basket spanning developed and emerging-market currencies, weighted by market liquidity and trade flows with the US, with short-term Treasuries as collateral.

Stated mandate

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.

USDU The Fund seeks total returns before fees and expenses that exceed the Bloomberg Dollar Total Return Index and provides broad exposure to the U.S. dollar against a basket of foreign currencies.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• USDU The basket reaches past the usual majors into emerging-market currencies, picked for liquidity and their countries' trade flows with the US, and reweighted once a year.sec.govbbhub.io
• Dollar exposure is built with short-dated currency forwards; the portfolio itself holds Treasury bills, money market instruments and cash equivalents.sec.gov
• The benchmark also reflects money market rate differences between the US and the countries behind the foreign currencies, not just spot moves.sec.gov
• Trading since December 2013 and built as a registered 1940 Act fund, with currency weights actively set rather than locked to the index.sec.gov

Worth knowing

• 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.

• USDU At 0.51% with no fee waiver, it sits above the currency-fund median and above single-currency trusts like FXE and FXY at 0.40% (also unwaived).
• Active means no index to hold it to: weights are the manager's call, so results can diverge from the Bloomberg Dollar Total Return Index in either direction.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume monster, so spreads and order type matter more here, and income goes out annually or semiannually, not monthly.

Full FXY profile⁠

Full USDU profile⁠