SLQD vs SPSB

SLQDAiShares 0-5 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

SPSBAState Street SPDR Portfolio Short Term Corporate Bond ETF

In short

SLQD iShares' liquid investment-grade corporate universe, trimmed to bonds maturing inside five years, for 0.06% a year. You keep the corporate credit; you shed most of the long-bond rate swings.

SPSB The short end of the corporate bond market, bought wholesale: roughly 1,600 investment-grade corporate bonds maturing in one to three years, for four basis points. Built as a cash-adjacent building block, not a yield swing.

Stated mandate

SLQD The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. dollar-denominated, investment-grade corporate bonds with remaining maturities of less than five years.

SPSB The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg U.S. 1-3 Year Corporate Bond Index before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• SLQD Charges 0.06% a year, under a third of the typical investment-grade corporate bond fund in its group.ishares.com
• Tracks an index of dollar-denominated investment-grade corporates maturing in under five years, screened for liquid issues. Credit stays on, duration comes off.ishares.com
• Thousands of bonds in one billion-dollar-plus wrapper, with income paid monthly.
• Running since 2013 and one of the stronger implementations in the investment-grade corporate group.

• SPSB Costs 0.04% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate bond funds. At the short end, where yields are thin, that gap is a real slice of what you keep.
• Nothing in the index matures past three years, so rate moves push the price around less than they do at intermediate corporate funds like SPIB or VCIT.ssga.com
• Roughly 1,600 bonds, market-cap weighted, reconstituted at each month end, with a $300 million minimum issue size. Income arrives monthly.ssga.com
• Trading since 2009 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that changes hands actively, one of the sturdier implementations in its peer group.

Worth knowing

• SLQD The window starts at zero years, so it holds paper close to maturity and reacts less to rate moves than intermediate peers like VCIT or IGIB. That cuts both ways.
• This is corporate credit, not Treasuries. Short maturities soften rate risk, they do not remove issuer risk.
• Monthly payouts float with prevailing rates and the bonds rolling through the portfolio. No fixed coupon at the fund level.

• SPSB Pure corporate credit, no Treasury ballast. Investment-grade paper still reprices when spreads widen, short maturities or not.ssga.com
• Bonds roll off fast and get replaced at whatever the market pays, so the income stream follows prevailing rates in both directions.ssga.com
• The manager samples the index rather than buying every bond in it, so the portfolio can drift modestly from the benchmark.sec.gov

Full SLQD profile⁠

Full SPSB profile⁠