PCI vs SCHI

PCIBPGIM Corporate Bond 5-10 Year ETF

SCHIASchwab 5-10 Year Corporate Bond ETF

In short

PCI The 5-to-10-year corporate belly is index-tracker country. PCI is PGIM's active counter-take: a credit team choosing the bonds instead of buying the benchmark as issued, with income paid monthly.

SCHI The cheap middle of the corporate bond curve. SCHI holds roughly 2,300 investment-grade corporate bonds maturing in five to ten years, charges three basis points, and pays interest monthly.

Stated mandate

PCI The fund seeks total return through a combination of current income and capital appreciation, primarily by investing in corporate bonds.

SCHI The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, an index representing the intermediate-term U.S. corporate bond market.

Why people hold it

• PCI Actively managed, so the team can lean toward or away from individual issuers rather than owning the index exactly as it was built.pgim.com
• The portfolio matches the brief on the tin: corporate bonds in the intermediate maturity range, no style drift into other credit corners.
• Total return mandate pairs current income with capital appreciation, and cash goes out on a monthly cadence.
• Sits in the upper half of a crowded investment-grade corporate field despite being one of its newest entrants.

• SCHI 0.03% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate bond funds. No peer in the group charges less.
• Follows the Bloomberg US 5-10 Year Corporate Bond Index closely, one of the tightest index implementations among intermediate corporate bond funds.schwabassetmanagement.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, the kind of scale that usually comes with narrow bid-ask spreads.
• About 2,300 bonds spread across the investment-grade corporate market, with income paid monthly rather than quarterly.

Worth knowing

• PCI At 0.25% a year, it costs several times what index heavyweights like VCIT and IGIB charge. That gap is the bar active credit picking has to clear.
• Launched in 2025, so there is no long record here and the process has not been watched through a full credit cycle.
• Trading footprint is thinner than the index giants in this space, which can mean wider spreads at the moment you transact.

• SCHI Five-to-ten-year maturities carry real rate sensitivity. When yields move, these bonds swing harder than short-term paper and softer than long bonds.
• Corporate credit only. No Treasuries, no mortgages, and nothing outside the five-to-ten-year window, so it's a slice of the bond market rather than the whole thing.schwabassetmanagement.com
• VCIT, IGIB and SPIB run near-identical mandates at similar cost, so the choice often comes down to index details and where you already hold accounts.

Full PCI profile⁠

Full SCHI profile⁠