SHY vs SPTS

SHYBiShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bond ETF

SPTSAState Street SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF

In short

SHY The incumbent slice of the short Treasury curve: about 90 U.S. government notes maturing in one to three years, running since 2002, heavily traded, paying monthly. The established name in its aisle, priced like it.

SPTS U.S. Treasury notes maturing in one to three years, wrapped at three basis points. SPTS sits in the cheapest tier of the short-Treasury aisle, charging a fifth of the category median for the same plain-vanilla job.

Stated mandate

SHY The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. Treasury bonds with remaining maturities of one to three years, providing targeted exposure to short-term government debt.

SPTS The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index before fees and expenses, providing exposure to U.S. Treasury securities with remaining maturities between 1 and 3 years.

Why people hold it

• SHY Pure mandate: the ICE U.S. Treasury 1-3 Year Bond Index, nothing else. Tracking has been about as tight as index funds get, and the credit behind the bonds is the U.S. government's.ishares.com
• Big and busy: a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so moving in and out of a cash-like sleeve rarely costs much in spread.
• One-to-three-year maturities mean smaller price moves when rates shift than long bonds see, and cash lands monthly rather than quarterly.
• Live since 2002 under iShares, through several full rate cycles, doing the same simple job the whole way.

• SPTS Charges 0.03% a year against a 0.15% median for short-Treasury funds. On cash-like money, the fee line is the part that doesn't drift.
• Follows the Bloomberg 1-3 Year U.S. Treasury Index closely, one of the tightest index fits among its short-Treasury peers.ssga.com
• Roughly 100 U.S. Treasury notes and nothing else. No corporates, no mortgages, no credit surprises hiding in the basket. Distributions land monthly.
• Trading since 2011 and now a multi-billion-dollar, actively traded fund, so it isn't a thin newcomer you have to nurse in and out of.

Worth knowing

• SHY Fees are the trade-off: 0.15% here versus 0.03% at VGSH, SCHO and SPTS. BBSB tracks the identical index for 0.04%.
• Treasuries only, short end only. No corporate credit, no long-duration kicker. The plain end of the bond market, by design.
• Short bonds are not a savings account. Prices still dip when short-term rates rise, and the monthly payout floats with them.

• SPTS Short maturities dampen price swings, they don't erase them. When short-term rates move, the fund's price and its payouts move too.
• Government paper only, so there's no credit spread in the income. The yield is whatever the front end of the Treasury curve is paying.
• VGSH and SCHO match the 0.03% fee on the same slice of the curve. Cost alone won't separate them; execution and platform access will.

Full SHY profile⁠

Full SPTS profile⁠