PFFV vs PFXF

PFFVBGlobal X Variable Rate Preferred ETF

PFXFBVanEck Preferred Securities ex Financials ETF

In short

PFFV Most preferred funds hand you a fixed coupon and a lot of rate sensitivity. PFFV screens for variable-rate preferreds only, so coupons reset off short-term benchmarks instead of standing still, at 0.25% a year with monthly payouts.

PFXF Most preferred funds are a bank bet in disguise, since financials dominate the preferred market. PFXF screens them out and tracks a non-financial preferred index instead, a niche it has held since 2012.

Stated mandate

PFFV The fund seeks to provide investment results generally corresponding to the price and yield performance of the ICE U.S. Variable Rate Preferred Securities Index before fees and expenses.

PFXF The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of its named ICE preferred-securities index.

Why people hold it

• PFFV Costs 0.25% a year, about half the typical preferred ETF fee and a fraction of what an actively run peer like FPE charges (0.83%).
• The whole point: an index of variable-rate preferreds, whose coupons reset off short-term benchmarks rather than locking in for the life of the security.
• Passive and plain-vanilla. Roughly 60 US preferred issues picked by published index rules, with income paid out monthly.
• Stacks up as one of the stronger builds in a crowded preferred-ETF field, mostly on cost and a clean, rules-based mandate.

• PFXF The whole idea in one line: no bank or insurer preferreds. The index keeps utilities, REITs and industrial issuers instead.vaneck.com
• Costs 0.40% a year, under the median for its index-tracking peer group, and distributions come monthly.
• Trading since 2012, over a billion dollars in assets and actively traded. A settled option, not a fresh launch chasing a theme.
• Straightforward plumbing: passive index tracking, roughly 120 preferreds, at least 80% of assets in benchmark securities. Upper half of its index-wrapper peer group.

Worth knowing

• PFFV Preferred issuance skews to banks and insurers, so this is concentrated financials credit in bond clothing, spread across only about 60 positions.
• Resets cut both ways. The same floating mechanism that lifts coupons when short-term rates climb also drags them down when rates fall.
• Moderately traded and mid-sized rather than a heavyweight, so bid-ask spreads matter more here than in the largest preferred funds.

• PFXF Cutting financials shifts the concentration rather than removing it: utilities, REITs and industrial issuers carry the weight.vaneck.com
• 0.40% is normal for preferreds, steep beside plain stock index wrappers like SCHK (0.03%) or VOOV (0.07%).
• Preferreds are rate-sensitive and sit below bonds in the capital stack, and VanEck discloses that payouts can include return of capital.

Full PFFV profile⁠

Full PFXF profile⁠