NEAR vs VGSH

NEARCiShares Short Duration Bond Active ETF

VGSHAVanguard Short-Term Treasury ETF

In short

NEAR The active outlier in a peer group of penny-cheap Treasury trackers. NEAR's managers pick across roughly 1,800 short bonds, government and corporate, aiming to out-earn the Bloomberg U.S. 1-3 Year Government/Credit index while holding duration under three years.

VGSH Plain one-to-three-year Treasuries for three basis points, running since 2009. No credit story, no active twist: VGSH owns the short end of the government curve and charges about as little as this category allows.

Stated mandate

NEAR The fund seeks total return above its Bloomberg U.S. 1-3 Year Government/Credit Bond Index benchmark while generally keeping portfolio duration below three years. It is actively managed through macro allocation and security selection focused on creditworthiness and valuation.

VGSH The fund seeks to track a market-weighted Treasury index with a short-term dollar-weighted average maturity.

Why people hold it

• NEAR Active by design: the managers move between government and corporate paper on creditworthiness and valuation, rather than copying an index line for line.ishares.com
• Roughly 1,800 positions, so no single issuer carries much weight. Income lands monthly.
• Running since 2013 and still doing what the documents say: duration generally kept under three years, one of the tighter mandate fits in its peer group.
• Billions in assets and regular daily trading behind it, sizeable for an actively managed bond fund.

• VGSH 0.03% a year, against a 0.15% median for 1-3 year Treasury funds. Same fee floor as SCHO and SPTS, and a fifth of what SHY charges for the same slice of the curve.
• Sticks tightly to the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury 1-3 Year Index, one of the closest-tracking implementations in its peer group.
• Roughly 90 US Treasury issues, sampled to match the index. No corporates, no mortgages, no derivatives overlay: the only credit question is the US Treasury itself.
• Pays monthly, and the income resets as short notes mature and newer ones roll in, so it moves with prevailing short-term rates. A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively.

Worth knowing

• NEAR Active costs money: 0.25% a year, above the peer median of 0.15% and far above index Treasury trackers like VGSH and SCHO at 0.03%.
• It buys corporate credit, not just government bonds, so issuer risk rides along. Pure Treasury peers such as SHY don't carry that.
• Outcomes hang on manager calls, not an index rulebook, so the portfolio can diverge from its benchmark in either direction.

• VGSH Short maturities soften rate moves, they don't erase them. Prices still fall when yields rise, and the fund itself has no maturity date the way a single note does.
• At the short end the cost race is a tie, not a win: SCHO tracks the same index for the same 0.03%. Differences show up in trading and plumbing, not the fee line.
• Nothing here reaches for yield: no corporate credit, no inflation linkage, no long bonds. That narrowness is the design, and it behaves nothing like a core bond fund.

Full NEAR profile⁠

Full VGSH profile⁠