HIPS vs IYLD

HIPSDGraniteShares HIPS US High Income ETF

IYLDAiShares Morningstar Multi-Asset Income ETF

In short

HIPS HIPS shops in a corner most index funds skip: a roughly 40-name basket of US pass-through securities, screened for lower volatility, paying out monthly. Income mandate first, cheap beta second.

IYLD One ticker, one income engine. IYLD is a fund of iShares funds, bundling equity, bond and other income funds into a single monthly-paying package that has run on the same playbook since 2012.

Stated mandate

HIPS The fund passively seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the EQM High Income Pass-Through Securities Index, using replication or representative sampling of its components.

IYLD The Fund seeks to track an index of underlying equity, fixed-income, and other income funds designed to provide high current income while offering an opportunity for capital appreciation.

Why people hold it

• HIPS One ticket to the pass-through corner of the US market: it tracks the EQM High Income Pass-Through Securities Index instead of a plain-vanilla stock benchmark.graniteshares.com
• Distributions land monthly, which matches how income spenders actually budget.
• Rules first: passive replication or sampling of the index, with a volatility screen written into the methodology rather than left to a manager's discretion.graniteshares.com
• Live since 2015, so this is a seasoned niche product with a decade-plus track record, not a fresh launch chasing a theme.

• IYLD A single trade buys a whole income lineup: the index it follows is built from underlying equity, fixed-income and other income funds, so the mixing and rebalancing happen inside the wrapper.ishares.com
• 0.50% a year, comfortably below the typical fee in its allocation peer group. Cheap for a multi-asset income build.
• Pays monthly, which lines the cash flow up with how most people actually pay bills.ishares.com
• Hews closely to the Morningstar Multi-Asset High Income Index it targets, one of the tighter index implementations in its peer group. No manager guesswork bolted on top.

Worth knowing

• HIPS Cost is the headline trade-off: 1.17% a year against a 0.45% median for index trackers in its peer group, one of the steepest fees among them.
• Concentrated by design: about 40 yield-heavy names, so a single holding or sector stumble carries far more weight than in a broad market fund.
• Smaller and only moderately traded next to mainstream index funds, which can mean wider bid-ask spreads at the moment you place an order.

• IYLD Small and thinly traded. Expect wider bid-ask spreads than the mega-funds, which matters most on larger orders.
• Income comes first here: capital appreciation is the secondary goal in its own objective, so it is built differently from a growth-tilted allocation fund.
• Broad allocation rivals cost far less (IRTR at 0.08%, AOA at 0.19%), though neither is built around high current income.

Full HIPS profile⁠

Full IYLD profile⁠