NUBD vs SPAB

NUBDANuveen ESG U.S. Aggregate Bond

SPABAState Street SPDR Portfolio 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.

SPAB A 2007-vintage core bond fund priced at 0.03%: roughly 8,500 US investment-grade bonds in one ticket, at the same rock-bottom fee the household names charge for the same index.

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.

SPAB The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index before fees and expenses, providing broad exposure to U.S.-dollar-denominated investment-grade bonds.

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.

• SPAB 0.03% a year against a 0.36% median for its peer group, and the same ticket price as AGG, SCHZ and BBAG on the identical index.
• Roughly 8,500 dollar-denominated investment-grade bonds in one line item, tracking the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index. Diversification you could not assemble bond by bond.ssga.com
• Trades actively and has tracked its index closely, putting it among the stronger implementations in the core-bond group.
• Running since 2007, now a multi-billion-dollar fund, and it pays monthly rather than quarterly.

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.

• SPAB Bond prices move opposite yields. When rates rise the index falls and the fund follows it down; a 0.03% fee cannot cushion that.
• AGG, SCHZ and BBAG hold the same declared index at the same 0.03%. Picking among them comes down to spreads and platform, not the portfolio.
• Investment grade and US dollar only by mandate: high yield and foreign-currency debt sit outside the remit.ssga.com

Full NUBD profile⁠

Full SPAB profile⁠