SJLD vs VGSH

SJLDCSanJac Alpha Low Duration ETF

VGSHAVanguard 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.

VGSH Plain one-to-three-year Treasuries for three basis points, running since 2009. No credit story, no active twist: VGSH owns the short end of the government curve and charges about as little as this category allows.

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.

VGSH The fund seeks to track a market-weighted Treasury index with a short-term dollar-weighted average maturity.

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.

• VGSH 0.03% a year, against a 0.15% median for 1-3 year Treasury funds. Same fee floor as SCHO and SPTS, and a fifth of what SHY charges for the same slice of the curve.
• Sticks tightly to the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury 1-3 Year Index, one of the closest-tracking implementations in its peer group.
• Roughly 90 US Treasury issues, sampled to match the index. No corporates, no mortgages, no derivatives overlay: the only credit question is the US Treasury itself.
• Pays monthly, and the income resets as short notes mature and newer ones roll in, so it moves with prevailing short-term rates. A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively.

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.

• VGSH Short maturities soften rate moves, they don't erase them. Prices still fall when yields rise, and the fund itself has no maturity date the way a single note does.
• At the short end the cost race is a tie, not a win: SCHO tracks the same index for the same 0.03%. Differences show up in trading and plumbing, not the fee line.
• Nothing here reaches for yield: no corporate credit, no inflation linkage, no long bonds. That narrowness is the design, and it behaves nothing like a core bond fund.

Full SJLD profile⁠

Full VGSH profile⁠