IYZ vs VOXP

IYZCiShares U.S. Telecommunications ETF

VOXPBVox Populi ETF

In short

IYZ One of the original sector ETFs, trading since 2000 and still literal about telecom: U.S. phone, internet and communication companies, with index caps that stop any one carrier from swallowing the portfolio.

VOXP US communication services beyond the mega caps: one index sleeve spanning large, mid and small caps, with 25/50 rules capping how far the sector's giants can dominate. A small, lightly traded fund running a very big fund's blueprint.

Stated mandate

IYZ The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. equities in the telecommunications sector and provides diversified access to U.S. companies offering phone, internet, and communication services.

VOXP The Fund seeks to track a benchmark measuring the investment return of communication services stocks.

Why people hold it

• IYZ Running since 2000, through the fiber build-out, the wireless wars and the streaming rewrite. Quarter-century histories are rare in sector ETFs.
• Literal about telecom by mandate: U.S. companies selling phone, internet and communication services, not the wider media-and-internet basket its broad peers carry.ishares.com
• The index trims at each quarterly rebalance: no single issuer above 22.5%, and issuers over 4.5% capped at 45% combined. The giant carriers get pruned by rule, not by hope.sec.gov
• Actively traded with BlackRock's iShares plumbing behind it, and cash goes out on a quarterly schedule.

• VOXP Costs 0.30% a year, under the 0.35% median for broad communication services funds, and it distributes quarterly.
• Its benchmark is a sector slice of the MSCI US Investable Market Index, which spans large, mid and small cap US stocks, so the basket reaches past the mega caps.msci.com
• The 25/50 rules cap any one issuer at 25% of the index and hold all positions above 5% to 50% combined, a structural check on concentration.msci.com

Worth knowing

• IYZ The fee is a step up: 0.37% versus single-digit basis points on the broad communication services trackers in this group (XLC, FCOM, VOX). That is the toll for the narrower cut.
• Concentrated by design: roughly two dozen holdings, and the cap rules still leave room for one issuer to sit near 22.5% of the fund.ishares.comsec.gov
• One sector, one country. It rides U.S. telecom, so its path can look nothing like a total-market fund's in either direction.

• VOXP Vanguard's VOX tracks the same declared index for 0.09%, so the fee gap is the main thing to weigh between two funds built on one blueprint.
• Small asset base and light trading volume mean wider spreads than the category's giants; limit orders matter more here.
• Launched in 2022, so it has far less track record than the decade-plus incumbents, and long-run tracking data is thin.

Full IYZ profile⁠

Full VOXP profile⁠