PCFI vs USHY

PCFI—Polen Floating Rate Income ETF

USHYAiShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

In short

PCFI Most high-yield ETFs buy fixed-coupon junk bonds. PCFI buys senior secured bank loans whose coupons reset with short-term rates, hand-picked from middle-market borrowers by an active credit team.

USHY The wide-angle lens on junk bonds: about 1,900 US dollar high yield corporate issues for 0.08% a year, a fifth of what the typical fund in its category charges. Broad, cheap, heavily traded, and it pays monthly.

Stated mandate

PCFI The Fund seeks total return through high current income and long-term capital appreciation, primarily by investing in fixed- and floating-rate high-yield fixed-income securities.

USHY The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. dollar-denominated high yield corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• PCFI Floating-rate loan coupons reset with short-term rates, so the portfolio carries much less interest-rate sensitivity than a fixed-coupon high-yield bond fund.polencapital.compolencapital.com 2
• Policy puts at least 80% of assets in floating-rate obligations and bank loans, largely first and second lien senior secured paper near the top of the capital structure.polencapital.com
• Fishes in middle-market credit (issuers with roughly $75M to $250M of EBITDA) in the US and, to a lesser extent, Canada, a corner broad index funds largely skip.polencapital.com
• Actively managed rather than index-tracking, and it pays income monthly.polencapital.com

• USHY Charges 0.08% a year while the median high yield fund in its cohort runs 0.40%. Cheap rent on an expensive-to-run corner of the bond market.
• Holds about 1,900 bonds against the ICE BofA US High Yield Constrained Index: the broad market, not a curated slice of the most liquid names.ishares.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the more actively traded in high yield, which tends to keep bid-ask spreads thin even on busy days.
• Pays monthly and has tracked its index tightly since its 2017 launch, one of the closer index matches in its peer group.

Worth knowing

• PCFI 0.49% a year is active-manager pricing. Index-based high-yield options such as SCYB (0.03%) and HYLB (0.05%) cost a small fraction of that.
• Launched in 2025 with a small asset base and light trading, so bid/ask spreads can run wider than in the category's household-name funds.
• Bank loans sit below investment grade (much of the leveraged loan market is rated B and below), so credit and liquidity risk ride along with the income.polencapital.com

• USHY High yield means below-investment-grade borrowers. When credit gets stressed this asset class drops with stocks instead of cushioning them.
• Cheaper tickets sit on the same shelf: SCYB at 0.03% and SPHY at 0.05%.
• This is a fund, not a bond ladder. No maturity date hands your principal back; the basket rolls on indefinitely.

Full PCFI profile⁠

Full USHY profile⁠