SJLD vs SPTS

SJLDCSanJac Alpha Low Duration ETF

SPTSAState Street SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF

In short

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.

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

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

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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 SJLD profile⁠

Full SPTS profile⁠