HYGV vs USHY

HYGVANorthern Trust High Yield Value-Scored Bond ETF

USHYAiShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

In short

HYGV Most high-yield ETFs buy the junk market by size. HYGV starts from the same universe, then reweights it toward Northern Trust's value score, with credit and liquidity screens on top. The quant tilt in a category built on plain beta.

USHY The wide-angle lens on junk bonds: about 1,900 US dollar high yield corporate issues for 0.08% a year, a fifth of what the typical fund in its category charges. Broad, cheap, heavily traded, and it pays monthly.

Stated mandate

HYGV The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Northern Trust High Yield Value-Scored US Corporate Bond Index.

USHY The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. dollar-denominated high yield corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• HYGV The index maximizes exposure to Northern Trust's proprietary value score, drops bonds in the lowest decile of its credit score, and screens out the thinnest new issues.sec.govflexshares.com
• Guardrails on the tilt: any issuer capped at 5% of the index, sector weights within 8 points of the parent index, duration kept similar, spread over roughly 1,000 bonds.sec.gov
• Plain index-fund plumbing: a 1940 Act ETF that has stayed close to the benchmark it advertises, pays monthly, and is one of the stronger implementations in its peer group.

• USHY Charges 0.08% a year while the median high yield fund in its cohort runs 0.40%. Cheap rent on an expensive-to-run corner of the bond market.
• Holds about 1,900 bonds against the ICE BofA US High Yield Constrained Index: the broad market, not a curated slice of the most liquid names.ishares.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the more actively traded in high yield, which tends to keep bid-ask spreads thin even on busy days.
• Pays monthly and has tracked its index tightly since its 2017 launch, one of the closer index matches in its peer group.

Worth knowing

• HYGV Fee is 0.37% net of a waiver through March 1, 2027 (0.38% gross). That sits near the category median, but above cap-weighted trackers like SCYB at 0.03% or USHY at 0.08%.
• The index is built to carry more yield than the broad high-yield market, and those bonds are speculative: issuer defaults and sharp price moves come with the territory.sec.gov
• It reweights the market rather than mirroring it, so results can drift from plain cap-weighted high-yield indexes in either direction.sec.gov

• USHY High yield means below-investment-grade borrowers. When credit gets stressed this asset class drops with stocks instead of cushioning them.
• Cheaper tickets sit on the same shelf: SCYB at 0.03% and SPHY at 0.05%.
• This is a fund, not a bond ladder. No maturity date hands your principal back; the basket rolls on indefinitely.

Full HYGV profile⁠

Full USHY profile⁠