IYT vs SEA

IYTBiShares U.S. Transportation ETF

SEACU.S. Global Sea to Sky Cargo ETF

In short

IYT The original transports ETF: listed in 2003, tied to the Dow Jones Transportation Average until 2021, now tracking a capped S&P index of roughly 40 railroads, truckers, airlines and freight names.

SEA One ticker for the whole freight chain: container ships, port operators, and air couriers. Fixed-tier weights keep the giant parcel names from swallowing the portfolio, with a 70/30 tilt toward sea over sky.

Stated mandate

IYT The fund seeks to track the investment results of an index made up of U.S. transportation-sector equities. It uses representative sampling and generally invests at least 80% of assets in the index's component securities.

SEA The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the U.S. Global SEA Index.

Why people hold it

• IYT Costs 0.37% a year with no waiver involved, below the median for its eight-fund transportation category and a hair above XTN's 0.35%.
• Trading since October 2003 and still one of the more actively traded funds in its category, a billion-dollar-plus fund in a corner of the market full of small ones.
• The index is float-cap weighted with a cap limiting how large any one stock can get, so a single giant railroad cannot swallow the fund. Large, mid and small caps all qualify.ishares.comspglobal.com
• One ticker for the whole freight complex: railroads, truckers, air freight and delivery, plus passenger airlines and ground transport.ishares.com

• SEA Owns freight end to end: marine shipping, port and harbor operators, and air freight and courier names, global and including emerging markets.usglobaletfs.com
• Weights are assigned in fixed tiers (5%, 4% and 2% slots for sea names, 3% for air) rather than by market cap, so one mega-cap courier cannot dominate the book.usglobaletfs.com
• Reconstitutes and rebalances quarterly, so the roughly 30-stock lineup refreshes with the freight cycle instead of drifting for years.usglobaletfs.com
• Trading since 2022 and an unusual pairing of ocean and air cargo in a single US-listed fund; it sits in the upper half of its global thematic peer group.usglobaletfs.com

Worth knowing

• IYT About 40 stocks in one cyclical sector. Moves with freight volumes, fuel and shipping rates, so it can wander far from the broad market for long stretches.
• The benchmark switched in July 2021 from the Dow Jones Transportation Average to the current S&P index, so older performance history reflects a different lineup.ishares.com
• Pays quarterly, but this is a sector equity fund: payouts follow whatever the holdings declare, not a set rate.

• SEA At 0.60% a year, it runs a touch above the 0.56% median for global thematic funds.
• A small fund that trades lightly, so spreads can be wider than in large sector ETFs.
• The index was built by U.S. Global Indices, a subsidiary of the adviser, with Indxx as calculation agent, and about 30 cyclical freight names make for a concentrated ride.usglobaletfs.com

Full IYT profile⁠

Full SEA profile⁠