PSH vs SPHY

PSHCPGIM Short Duration High Yield ETF

SPHYAState Street SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF

In short

PSH Junk bonds with the interest-rate dial turned down. PSH is PGIM's active run at short-maturity high yield, measured against a 1-3 year high yield benchmark, and it pays monthly.

SPHY State Street's junk-bond workhorse: roughly 1,900 US high yield bonds in one wrapper for 0.05% a year, a fraction of what the typical high yield ETF charges, with income paid monthly.

Stated mandate

PSH The Fund seeks total return through current income and capital appreciation. It primarily invests in diversified below-investment-grade fixed-income instruments and normally commits at least 80% of investable assets to those instruments or economically similar investments.

SPHY The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the ICE BofA US High Yield Index.

Why people hold it

• PSH Short end by design: the yardstick is the Bloomberg 1-3 Year High Yield Corporate 1% Capped Index, so rate swings push it around less than a full-maturity junk bond fund.pgim.com
• Actively run rather than index-cloned, with at least 80% of investable assets in below-investment-grade debt or economically similar instruments.pgim.com
• Income lands monthly, and the stated mandate is total return (current income plus capital appreciation), not yield alone.

• SPHY 0.05% a year against a peer-group median about eight times higher. In high yield, the fee comes straight out of coupon income, so the gap does real work.
• Holds about 1,900 bonds tracking the ICE BofA US High Yield Index, broad enough that no single issuer's trouble dominates the portfolio.ssga.com
• Live since 2012, a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively and has stuck tightly to its stated index rather than drifting from the mandate.
• Distributions arrive monthly, in step with how the underlying coupons come in.

Worth knowing

• PSH 0.45% a year sits above the high yield category median and well above index rivals like SCYB (0.03%) and SPHY (0.05%). That's the toll for an active desk.
• Short maturities trim rate sensitivity, not credit risk. The borrowers here are rated below investment grade, and defaults come with that territory.
• Trades thinly beside the category's giants and runs a modest asset base, so spreads can be wider than at the household-name high yield funds.

• SPHY This is below-investment-grade credit. Defaults and spread moves drive the price far more than Treasury yields do, and sell-offs in this asset class can be sharp.
• Fees here are already near the floor: SCYB lists 0.03% and HYLB matches at 0.05%, so the cost edge over the strongest peers is narrow.
• Scope is US high yield corporates, full stop. No investment-grade ballast, no emerging market debt, nothing to soften a credit drawdown from inside the fund.ssga.com

Full PSH profile⁠

Full SPHY profile⁠