SHRD vs VTC

SHRDFArimathea Catholic Core Bond ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

SHRD An actively run core bond portfolio filtered through Catholic faith-based guidelines and measured against the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate. The values screen is the product, and you pay above the category's index majors to get it.

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

SHRD The Fund's mandate is to generate income while preserving capital.

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

• SHRD The prospectus locks the portfolio to Catholic Faith-Based Guidelines, a values filter that rarely shows up inside a plain core bond fund.
• Actively run against the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate rather than cloning it, which is how a screened bond book can still aim for a broad-market shape.
• Simple stated job: income with capital preservation, drawing on US, developed international and emerging market debt.

• 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

• SHRD Costs 0.52% a year, against index peers like SPBO and VTC at 0.03% and USIG at 0.04%. The screen plus active management is the premium here.
• A 2026 launch that runs small and trades lightly, so spreads can be wider than on the category's heavyweights.
• Catholic screens differ by provider, and the specific exclusions here are not laid out in detail publicly, so the prospectus is where to confirm what is filtered out.

• 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 SHRD profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠