RJVI vs VTC

RJVICRJ Eagle Vertical Income ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

RJVI Most investment-grade corporate bond funds buy the bond and stop there. RJVI roams the whole capital stack, holding a company's bonds, preferred shares or common stock, wherever the income case looks strongest.

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

RJVI The fund seeks current income, with long-term capital appreciation as a secondary objective. It uses a capital-structure-agnostic approach, primarily investing in investment-grade corporate bonds while opportunistically investing in preferred stock or common stock when they offer greater risk-adjusted income potential.

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

• RJVI Capital-structure-agnostic by design: mostly investment-grade corporate bonds, with room to move into preferred or common stock when those offer better risk-adjusted income.
• The mandate is specific for an active fund: current income first, long-term appreciation second, and the portfolio lines up closely with what the prospectus describes.
• One decision instead of three: the bond, preferred and common-stock income mix is the manager's call rather than something you assemble from separate funds.

• 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

• RJVI At 0.51%, it costs well above index rivals in the same aisle like VCIT (0.03%) and IGIB (0.04%). The flexibility is what the extra buys.
• It launched in October 2025, so there's a short history and no full credit cycle to judge the approach against.
• This is a young, small fund rather than one of the category's heavily traded giants, which can show up as wider bid/ask spreads.

• 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 RJVI profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠