IMTB vs IUSB

IMTBAiShares Core 5-10 Year USD Bond ETF

IUSBAiShares Core Universal USD Bond ETF

In short

IMTB Most core bond funds hand you the entire yield curve. IMTB takes only the 5-to-10-year belly, and its index reaches past the Agg into high yield, for seven basis points a year.

IUSB Most core bond funds stop at investment grade. IUSB keeps going, folding high-yield USD debt into the same wrapper across roughly 18,000 bonds, for 0.06% a year.

Stated mandate

IMTB The fund seeks to track an index of U.S.-dollar-denominated investment-grade and high-yield bonds with remaining maturities between five and ten years.

IUSB The Fund seeks to track an index of U.S.-dollar-denominated bonds spanning investment-grade and high-yield sectors.

Why people hold it

• IMTB Charges 0.07% a year against a category median near 0.36%. The maturity-sliced build does not carry a boutique price tag.
• The Bloomberg U.S. Universal 5-10 Year Index goes where the Agg stops: investment grade plus a high-yield sleeve, spread across thousands of individual bonds.ishares.com
• Tracks its benchmark very closely and pays monthly, so income arrives on a set cadence rather than in quarterly lumps.
• An iShares Core fund running since 2016, and one of the stronger builds in a core bond aisle that holds well over a hundred competitors.

• IUSB 0.06% a year, a fraction of what the typical broad bond fund in its category charges, and iShares has run it since 2014.
• Roughly 18,000 bonds spanning investment-grade and high-yield sectors, so one ticker covers ground a plain Agg tracker leaves on the table.ishares.com
• Tracks its index closely, trades heavily, and sits on a multi-billion-dollar asset base. Income is paid monthly.
• Among the strongest implementations in a crowded field of nearly 200 core bond funds.

Worth knowing

• IMTB Trades lightly next to giants like BND and SCHZ. Thinner volume can mean wider spreads at the moment you buy or sell.
• One maturity bucket only: no short-end ballast, no long bonds. Moves in intermediate rates hit the whole portfolio at once.
• The high-yield slice adds credit risk that plain Agg trackers (BND, SPAB, SCHZ) leave out, and those three run at 0.03%.

• IUSB That high-yield sleeve is the trade-off: more credit risk than an investment-grade-only fund, and more movement when spreads widen.
• BND, SPAB and SCHZ charge 0.03%, half IUSB's fee, but they stay inside investment grade.
• Payouts land monthly, but the amount floats with the coupons underneath. Nothing about the income stream is fixed.

Full IMTB profile⁠

Full IUSB profile⁠