HYLB vs HYXF

HYLBAXtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

HYXFBiShares ESG Advanced High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

In short

HYLB Broad-market junk bonds at index-fund pricing: 0.05% a year, a fraction of what the typical high-yield bond ETF charges, spread across roughly 1,300 issues. Running since 2016, it pays monthly.

HYXF High yield with a filter. HYXF tracks a Bloomberg MSCI index of U.S. dollar junk bonds that screens out specified controversial business activities, then pays the income out monthly across roughly 600 issues.

Stated mandate

HYLB The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Solactive USD High Yield Corporates Total Market Index. It uses a passive representative-sampling indexing approach.

HYXF The fund seeks high-yield fixed-income exposure and income by tracking an ESG-screened index of U.S. dollar-denominated corporate bonds, with exclusions for specified controversial business activities.

Why people hold it

• HYLB 0.05% expense ratio puts it at the low end of the high-yield ETF field, matching SPHY and undercutting USHY's 0.08%. Fee drag matters most where yield is the whole point.
• Total-market mandate, not a filtered slice: roughly 1,300 bonds sampled from the Solactive USD High Yield Corporates Total Market Index.
• Tracking has been tight against its stated index, and it trades actively enough to keep spreads workable. One of the cleaner implementations in the high-yield group.
• Monthly distributions, with a live record going back to a 2016 launch (through the 2020 credit shock and the 2022 rate spike).

• HYXF Screen first, yield second: it tracks the Bloomberg MSCI US High Yield Choice ESG Screened Index, excluding specified controversial business activities, and it has hugged that index closely.
• 0.35% a year comes in under the typical high yield bond fund, so the values screen doesn't carry a boutique price tag.
• Spread across roughly 600 bonds, with income paid monthly rather than quarterly.
• Among the stronger implementations in a crowded high yield field, and the data behind that read is solid.

Worth knowing

• HYLB This is the credit-risk end of the bond market. Below-investment-grade issuers default more often, and prices can fall hard when spreads widen.
• Representative sampling means it holds a subset of the index, not every bond, so results can drift slightly from the benchmark.
• Cheap, but not the floor: SCYB runs 0.03%. HYLB is also a mid-sized fund next to the largest names in the category.

• HYXF The screen has a price: SCYB, SPHY and HYLB deliver unscreened high yield exposure for a small fraction of 0.35%.
• A smaller fund that trades thinly next to the category heavyweights, which can mean wider spreads at the moment you trade.
• The filter changes who you lend to, not the credit risk you take: these are below-investment-grade borrowers that move with credit stress.

Full HYLB profile⁠

Full HYXF profile⁠