NUBD vs SCHZ

NUBDANuveen ESG U.S. Aggregate Bond

SCHZASchwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF

In short

NUBD The core bond index, run through an ESG filter. NUBD tracks a Bloomberg MSCI U.S. Aggregate ESG Select benchmark across roughly 2,400 investment-grade bonds, at a fraction of what the typical bond fund in its group charges.

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

NUBD The Fund passively invests in diversified U.S. investment-grade bonds that meet environmental, social and governance criteria and seeks to track the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI U.S. Aggregate ESG Select Index before fees and expenses.

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

• NUBD 0.12% a year, versus a category median around 0.36%. In a low-yield asset class, that gap is most of what an investor actually controls.
• Live since 2017, making it one of the longer-running ESG-screened aggregate bond ETFs rather than a recent launch chasing the theme.
• Roughly 2,400 investment-grade bonds, so no single issuer drives the fund, and it pays monthly like a plain core bond holding.
• Clean mandate: a standard U.S. aggregate bond exposure with the ESG screen layered on top, and it ranks in the top quartile of a 187-fund aggregate bond group.

• 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

• NUBD The unscreened giants (BND, SPAB, SCHZ) run at 0.03%. The ESG screen carries a real, if small, price tag over vanilla aggregate exposure.
• Mid-sized and only moderately traded next to the household-name bond ETFs, which can show up as wider spreads at the point of trade.
• The screen changes which bonds it owns, not how it behaves: this is still a full aggregate mandate, so prices move with interest rates.

• 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 NUBD profile⁠

Full SCHZ profile⁠