GOVT vs MGOV

GOVTAiShares U.S. Treasury Bond ETF

MGOVCFirst Trust Intermediate Government Opportunities ETF

In short

GOVT The plain-vanilla Treasury sleeve. One index fund spanning the full maturity spectrum of US government debt, running since 2012 at five basis points, with none of the credit risk that lives in the rest of the bond aisle.

MGOV Active management in a corner of the market built on index trackers. First Trust's team roams Treasuries, agency and mortgage-related debt instead of following one benchmark, and pays out monthly.

Stated mandate

GOVT The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. Treasury bonds spanning the full maturity spectrum, providing broad exposure to U.S. government debt for stability and income.

MGOV The Fund seeks to maximize long-term total return by investing primarily in U.S. government, agency, government-sponsored-entity, Treasury, and mortgage-related debt securities. It may also use ETFs and derivatives tied to Government Securities.

Why people hold it

• GOVT Charges 0.05% a year, well under the median fee in its broad-Treasury peer group.
• Tracks the ICE US Treasury Core Bond Index tightly, one of the cleaner index implementations among broad Treasury funds.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades heavily, which tends to show up as thin bid-ask spreads for retail-size orders.
• US Treasury debt and nothing else, paid out monthly. No corporate credit to underwrite, no mortgage prepayments to model.ishares.com

• MGOV Genuinely active mandate: Treasuries, agency and government-sponsored-entity debt, and mortgage-related bonds, plus ETFs and derivatives tied to government securities.
• Pays monthly, so income lands on a steady schedule instead of quarterly.
• Credit stays in government and agency territory. The manager's levers are interest-rate positioning and mortgage exposure, not reaching down into junk.
• Spread across roughly a hundred-plus bond positions rather than a handful of concentrated bets.

Worth knowing

• GOVT Covering the full maturity spectrum means long-dated bonds are in the mix, so the share price moves with interest rates more than a short-dated Treasury fund's would.
• Nominal Treasuries only. Inflation-linked exposure sits in different funds, such as SPIP or VTP.
• SPTB runs the same broad-Treasury idea at 0.03%, two basis points less.

• MGOV At 0.50% a year, it costs well above index government-bond peers like VGIT and SCHP, which run at a few basis points. The active call is what you're paying for.
• Thinly traded next to the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads and order size are worth a look.
• Launched in 2023, so the record is short compared with government-bond funds that have been running for decades.

Full GOVT profile⁠

Full MGOV profile⁠