SCHO vs SJLD

SCHOASchwab Short-Term U.S. Treasury ETF

SJLDCSanJac Alpha Low Duration ETF

In short

SCHO Short Treasuries, stripped to the studs: roughly 100 US government bonds maturing in one to three years, wrapped in a 0.03% fee. Running since 2010, and one of the tighter builds in its corner of the bond market.

SJLD A boutique take on the short-Treasury shelf: SJLD keeps duration short with T-bills and Treasuries, but can also reach into exchange-listed debt, a wrinkle the giant index funds in this corner don't have.

Stated mandate

SCHO The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of an index representing the short-term U.S. Treasury bond market.

SJLD Seeks income while maintaining low duration by investing primarily in short-duration U.S. Treasury securities, Treasury bills and exchange-traded debt.

Why people hold it

• SCHO 0.03% a year, a fifth of the 0.15% on the category's best-known fund, SHY. When every fund in the aisle owns the same Treasuries, the fee is the main lever.
• Pure government paper: the Bloomberg US Treasury 1-3 Year Index, tracked very closely. No corporate bonds, no credit spread dressed up as yield.schwabassetmanagement.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively and pays income monthly, so entering and exiting rarely means wrestling the spread.
• Live since 2010 and among the strongest implementations in the short-Treasury peer group, which matters in a slice of the market where execution is the whole game.

• SJLD The mandate is refreshingly narrow: short-duration U.S. Treasuries and T-bills, built so a move in rates moves the price less than it would in a long-bond fund.
• Exchange-traded debt sits inside the mandate alongside Treasuries, giving the manager an income lever that pure 1-3 year Treasury index trackers simply don't carry.
• Pays shareholders on a quarterly schedule, and it's a standard 1940 Act fund, so you get a 1099 rather than a K-1 at tax time.

Worth knowing

• SCHO Bonds, not cash. One to three year maturities still reprice when rates move, so the share price wobbles instead of sitting flat.schwabassetmanagement.com
• Income floats with short-term Treasury yields rather than locking in, so the monthly payout moves up and down as rates do.
• The 0.03% fee is a three-way tie with VGSH and SPTS, and VGSH tracks the identical index, so cost alone will not separate them.

• SJLD At 0.35%, the fee runs well above the typical short-Treasury fund, and the shelf's index heavyweights (VGSH, SCHO, SPTS) charge single-digit basis points.
• Small asset base and thin trading. Spreads tend to be wider here than in the multi-billion-dollar rivals, so the cost of getting in and out is part of the math.
• Launched in 2024, so the record is short and hasn't yet run through a full rate cycle the way the decades-old names in this category have.

Full SCHO profile⁠

Full SJLD profile⁠