HYLB vs IQHI

HYLBAXtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

IQHICNYLI MacKay High Income 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.

IQHI Born as an ESG high yield fund, IQHI dropped the screen in 2025 and now chases one thing: current income. MacKay Shields' credit team roams junk bonds, loans and convertibles, and the fund pays monthly.

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.

IQHI The Fund seeks to maximize current income.

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).

• IQHI Actively run by MacKay Shields, with a mandate reaching past plain bonds into loans, convertibles, CLOs and asset-backed paper, plus derivatives to hedge or manage duration.sec.gov
• The ESG overlay came off in February 2025, when the fund was renamed from NYLI MacKay ESG High Income ETF. The mandate now reads simply: maximize current income.sec.gov
• Pays monthly, and spreads credit risk across roughly 400 positions rather than a concentrated handful.

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.

• IQHI Costs 0.41% net of a fee waiver (0.58% gross), near the category median, but index rivals run far leaner: SCYB at 0.03%, SPHY at 0.05%, USHY at 0.08%.
• Thinly traded next to the category's heavyweights, so spreads can run wider and large orders may move the price.
• Below-investment-grade debt without limitation means real default and credit risk, and loans and CLOs add layers most index high yield funds skip.sec.gov

Full HYLB profile⁠

Full IQHI profile⁠