MBBB vs VTC

MBBBCVanEck Moody’s Analytics BBB Corporate Bond ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

MBBB BBB is the crowded bottom rung of investment grade. MBBB doesn't just buy the whole rung: it tracks a Moody's Analytics index that screens for BBB bonds that look attractively valued with comparatively lower downgrade risk.

VTC Most cheap corporate bond funds sell you one slice of the maturity curve. VTC buys the whole investment-grade corporate market, short to long, for 0.03% a year, and since 2025 it owns the bonds directly instead of stacking three Vanguard funds.

Stated mandate

MBBB The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the MVIS Moody’s Analytics US BBB Corporate Bond Index, which selects attractively valued BBB-rated corporate bonds with comparatively lower downgrade risk.

VTC The Fund seeks to track a broad, market-weighted corporate bond index, specifically the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index. It uses an indexing approach focused on investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• MBBB A credit screen, not a size-weighted index. The MVIS Moody's Analytics US BBB index selects on valuation and downgrade risk, which is the risk that actually matters at the edge of investment grade.vaneck.com
• It does the job it advertises: the portfolio has hugged its stated index closely, which is the whole assignment for a rules-based bond fund.
• Roughly 170 corporate bonds, spread across a single credit tier, with distributions paid on a monthly cadence.

• VTC 0.03% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. On this exact Bloomberg index, nothing in the group charges less.
• One ticker, the full corporate curve. Top-graded rivals like VCIT, IGIB and IGSB each buy a single maturity band; VTC's index spans short, intermediate and long fixed-rate corporates.
• No overlays, no active tilts, no credit guesswork. Market-weighted indexing of investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporates, and the portfolio hews tightly to that mandate.
• Income lands monthly, not quarterly, which matters if bond coupons are doing real work in your cash flow.

Worth knowing

• MBBB The screen costs 0.25% a year. Plain-vanilla corporate bond giants like VCIT, USIG and SPIB run at a few basis points, so the model has to earn that gap.
• Small and thinly traded since its 2020 launch, so spreads can run wider than in the household-name corporate bond funds.
• By design it holds a filtered slice of BBB debt, not the whole market, so results can drift from a standard investment-grade corporate benchmark in either direction.

• VTC Whole-curve means long bonds in the mix, so prices move more with interest rates than a 1-5 year slice like IGSB does.
• The plumbing changed in March 2025: Vanguard moved it from holding three underlying corporate bond ETFs to buying the index bonds directly. Same objective, same index.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume heavyweight, so spreads can run wider than the busiest corporate bond funds, particularly in choppy markets.

Full MBBB profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠