IMTB vs SCHZ

IMTBAiShares Core 5-10 Year USD Bond ETF

SCHZASchwab U.S. Aggregate 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.

SCHZ Schwab's core bond holding: the broad U.S. investment-grade bond market, over 10,000 issues deep, for 0.03% a year. That is the floor of a category whose median fee is more than ten times higher. Running since 2011, pays monthly.

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.

SCHZ The fund seeks to track the total return of an index representing the broad U.S. investment-grade bond market.

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.

• SCHZ 0.03% a year sits at the category floor, against a cohort median of 0.36%. Only a short list of aggregate-bond funds matches it, including AGG, BND and SPAB.
• Tracks the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index tightly, one of the cleanest index implementations among the 187 funds in its peer group.schwabassetmanagement.com
• One ticker, thousands of investment-grade U.S. bonds, income paid monthly. The plumbing of a bond portfolio without buying a single bond yourself.
• Live since 2011 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so trading costs on ordinary retail-sized orders tend to be minor.

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%.

• SCHZ This is duration exposure, not a cash substitute. Interest-rate moves, not credit selection, drive most of the ride, and that is the weakest part of its risk profile.
• Investment grade and U.S. only: no high-yield, no foreign bonds. Funds like BNDX cover the international side of the cohort.
• The aggregate-bond aisle is commoditized. Against AGG, BND and SPAB at the same 0.03%, the differences come down to index variant and where you already custody, not fee.

Full IMTB profile⁠

Full SCHZ profile⁠