SCHO vs USSH

SCHOASchwab Short-Term U.S. Treasury ETF

USSHBWisdomTree 1-3 Year Laddered Treasury Fund

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.

USSH Short Treasuries, built as a ladder. USSH tracks Bloomberg's laddered 1-3 year Treasury index, holding roughly two dozen positions spread across the maturity range, and pays out monthly.

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.

USSH The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg US Treasury 1-3 Year Laddered Index.

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.

• USSH The ladder is the whole idea: maturities are spread across the one-to-three-year range by index rule, not clustered wherever the Treasury happened to issue most.wisdomtree.com
• Narrow, literal mandate: US Treasury debt maturing in one to three years, and the fund has tracked that index very closely since launch.
• Pays monthly, holds roughly two dozen Treasuries, and runs as a plain 1940 Act fund. No derivatives sleeve, no leverage, no options overlay.

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.

• USSH At 0.15% it matches the category median, but the largest short-Treasury trackers (VGSH, SCHO, SPTS) charge 0.03% for similar exposure.
• Small and thinly traded beside the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads can run wider. Limit orders are the standard workaround.
• Launched in 2024, so the live record is short and spans a single rate backdrop.

Full SCHO profile⁠

Full USSH profile⁠