PFIG vs VTC

PFIGBInvesco Fundamental Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

PFIG Most corporate bond funds hand the biggest weight to whoever borrowed the most. PFIG's index sizes issuers by sales, cash flow, dividends and book assets instead, sticking to US public companies in the 1-10 year maturity band.

VTC Most cheap corporate bond funds sell you one slice of the maturity curve. VTC buys the whole investment-grade corporate market, short to long, for 0.03% a year, and since 2025 it owns the bonds directly instead of stacking three Vanguard funds.

Stated mandate

PFIG The Fund seeks to track the investment results of its specified underlying index before fees and expenses, investing primarily in securities from that index.

VTC The Fund seeks to track a broad, market-weighted corporate bond index, specifically the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index. It uses an indexing approach focused on investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• PFIG Weight comes from four accounting measures of company size (book assets, gross sales, gross dividends, cash flow), not from how much debt an issuer has outstanding.sec.gov
• The 1-10 year maturity band keeps it in short-to-intermediate territory, so price swings from rate moves are milder than long-dated corporate bond funds.researchaffiliates.com
• Spreads risk across roughly 800 investment grade bonds and pays income monthly.
• Running since 2011, and it sits in the upper half of the investment grade corporate bond funds we grade.

• VTC 0.03% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. On this exact Bloomberg index, nothing in the group charges less.
• One ticker, the full corporate curve. Top-graded rivals like VCIT, IGIB and IGSB each buy a single maturity band; VTC's index spans short, intermediate and long fixed-rate corporates.
• No overlays, no active tilts, no credit guesswork. Market-weighted indexing of investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporates, and the portfolio hews tightly to that mandate.
• Income lands monthly, not quarterly, which matters if bond coupons are doing real work in your cash flow.

Worth knowing

• PFIG 0.22% a year, above the category median and well above the plain index giants (VCIT, USIG, SPIB) at 0.03%-0.04%. The fundamental screen is what the extra buys.
• Thinly traded and modest in size, so spreads can run wider than the category heavyweights. Limit orders matter more here.
• Issuers must be US-domiciled public companies, and the fund samples the index rather than buying every bond in it.sec.govinvesco.com

• VTC Whole-curve means long bonds in the mix, so prices move more with interest rates than a 1-5 year slice like IGSB does.
• The plumbing changed in March 2025: Vanguard moved it from holding three underlying corporate bond ETFs to buying the index bonds directly. Same objective, same index.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume heavyweight, so spreads can run wider than the busiest corporate bond funds, particularly in choppy markets.

Full PFIG profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠