IG vs USIG

IGBPrincipal Investment Grade Corporate Active ETF

USIGAiShares Broad USD Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

In short

IG Most investment-grade corporate bond ETFs just buy the index. IG hires a manager to pick the credits, charges 0.19% (the category median), and pays income monthly. Active credit work at an index-adjacent price.

USIG Most investment-grade corporate bond funds hand you one slice of the maturity curve. USIG takes the whole thing, thousands of US dollar corporate bonds from short-dated to long, for four basis points a year.

Stated mandate

IG The Fund seeks current income and, secondarily, capital appreciation.

USIG The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. dollar-denominated investment-grade corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• IG Actively managed, not index-tracking: the manager can lean into or step away from individual issuers and sectors instead of owning the market by weight.
• At 0.19%, it costs the same as the typical investment-grade corporate bond ETF. The active mandate doesn't come with an active-management markup.
• Income comes first in the mandate (current income, with capital appreciation secondary), and distributions are paid monthly.
• Trading since 2018, with a portfolio that lines up closely with what the prospectus says it does. Sits in the upper half of its investment-grade corporate peer group.

• USIG Costs 0.04% a year, against a category median near 0.19%. CORP, which tracks the same ICE BofA US Corporate Index, charges 0.41%.
• One ticker, the full USD investment-grade corporate curve: thousands of bonds, short to long. Slice funds like IGSB (1-5 year) and IGIB (5-10 year) each cover one segment.ishares.com
• Running since 2007, it has tracked its index with very little drift and is one of the more actively traded funds in its category.
• Interest lands monthly, and this is a multi-billion-dollar fund that ranks among the strongest implementations in its peer group.

Worth knowing

• IG Thinly traded compared with the index heavyweights, so bid-ask spreads can be wider and bigger orders need more patience.
• That 0.19% is several times the 0.03%-0.04% charged by the largest index peers, VCIT and USIG. The gap is the price of the manager's judgment.
• A small fund next to the multi-billion-dollar index leaders in this corner of the bond market.

• USIG Owning the whole curve means long-dated bonds ride along, so the price swings more when rates move than a short-maturity slice such as IGSB.
• This is corporate credit, not Treasuries. Investment grade at purchase, but prices can fall when spreads widen or an issuer is downgraded.ishares.com
• VCIT edges it on fee at 0.03%, though that fund stays in intermediate maturities rather than the full curve.

Full IG profile⁠

Full USIG profile⁠