SPAB vs TABD

SPABAState Street SPDR Portfolio Aggregate Bond ETF

TABDCTransamerica Bond Active ETF

In short

SPAB A 2007-vintage core bond fund priced at 0.03%: roughly 8,500 US investment-grade bonds in one ticket, at the same rock-bottom fee the household names charge for the same index.

TABD Transamerica's first move into ETFs: an actively run core bond portfolio steered by Aegon's fixed income desk, aiming for total return from income plus price gains, at 0.39% a year.

Stated mandate

SPAB The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index before fees and expenses, providing broad exposure to U.S.-dollar-denominated investment-grade bonds.

TABD The Fund seeks total return from current income and capital appreciation.

Why people hold it

• SPAB 0.03% a year against a 0.36% median for its peer group, and the same ticket price as AGG, SCHZ and BBAG on the identical index.
• Roughly 8,500 dollar-denominated investment-grade bonds in one line item, tracking the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index. Diversification you could not assemble bond by bond.ssga.com
• Trades actively and has tracked its index closely, putting it among the stronger implementations in the core-bond group.
• Running since 2007, now a multi-billion-dollar fund, and it pays monthly rather than quarterly.

• TABD Active bond management for 0.39% a year, only a few basis points above the median fee in a cohort dominated by cheap index trackers.
• Run by Aegon Asset Management, Transamerica's affiliated bond shop, and launched December 2025 as one of the firm's first two active ETFs.prnewswire.comtransamerica.com
• Clear mandate: total return from current income and capital appreciation, principally through bonds and bond-like derivatives. No index to track.

Worth knowing

• SPAB Bond prices move opposite yields. When rates rise the index falls and the fund follows it down; a 0.03% fee cannot cushion that.
• AGG, SCHZ and BBAG hold the same declared index at the same 0.03%. Picking among them comes down to spreads and platform, not the portfolio.
• Investment grade and US dollar only by mandate: high yield and foreign-currency debt sit outside the remit.ssga.com

• TABD Index heavyweights BND, SPAB and SCHZ charge 0.03%. Here you pay roughly ten times that for a manager's discretion.
• Launched in December 2025, so there is no long record to judge. Results ride on the subadviser's calls, not an index.
• Small and lightly traded next to the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than on the mega funds.

Full SPAB profile⁠

Full TABD profile⁠