HYLB vs SHYL

HYLBAXtrackers USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

SHYLAXtrackers Short Duration High Yield 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.

SHYL High yield without the long fuse: SHYL owns only junk bonds maturing inside five years, so rate swings land lighter than on the broad high yield crowd. Costs 0.20%, 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.

SHYL The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Solactive USD High Yield Corporates Total Market 0-5 Year Index. It normally invests at least 80% of net assets, plus investment borrowings, in high yield bonds.

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).

• SHYL Every bond in the index matures within five years, which mechanically trims interest rate sensitivity versus full-maturity high yield funds.
• A 0.20% fee, well under the high yield category median, which is unusual for a fund running a specialist mandate rather than the plain broad index.
• About 800 issues spread default risk thin, and the income arrives monthly rather than quarterly.
• Running since 2018 and tracking its Solactive 0-5 year index tightly, it sits in the upper tier of its high yield peer group.

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.

• SHYL Short maturities damp rate moves, not credit risk. These are still below-investment-grade borrowers, and they reprice fast when spreads widen.
• Trades thinly next to broad high yield heavyweights like SPHY and USHY, so bid-ask spreads can run wider in fast markets.
• If the five-year maturity limit isn't the point for you, broad rivals like SCYB and SPHY charge a fraction of the fee.

Full HYLB profile⁠

Full SHYL profile⁠