SPBO vs SUSC

SPBOAState Street SPDR Portfolio Corporate Bond ETF

SUSCAiShares ESG Aware USD Corporate Bond ETF

In short

SPBO The whole investment-grade corporate bond market in one ticker for three basis points. Most rivals sell you a maturity slice; SPBO owns the lot, and it undercuts other funds tracking the very same Bloomberg index.

SUSC Corporate bond beta with a conscience filter: roughly 4,000 investment-grade USD bonds, screened on business involvement and tilted toward better ESG profiles, in one ticker. Trading since 2017, paying monthly.

Stated mandate

SPBO The fund seeks investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index.

SUSC The fund seeks to track an index of investment-grade USD corporate bonds with positive environmental, social, and governance characteristics in aggregate.

Why people hold it

• SPBO 0.03% a year against a category median of 0.19%. In bond land, where the yield does the heavy lifting, that fee gap is not a rounding error.
• Thousands of corporate bonds across the full maturity range, so you hold the broad IG corporate market instead of one duration bucket.ssga.com
• Same index, very different tolls: KORP charges 0.29%, JLQD 0.35%, JHCB 0.53%. SPBO sits at the cheap end of that list.
• Running since 2011, pays monthly, and tracks its benchmark about as closely as anything in the investment-grade corporate group.

• SUSC Breadth, not a slice. About 4,000 investment-grade USD corporate bonds, so the screen runs across the whole market rather than a narrow corner of it.
• At 0.18%, it sits just under the typical fee in its investment-grade corporate peer group, which is unusual for a screened product.
• The label and the portfolio match: one named benchmark, the Bloomberg MSCI US Corporate ESG Focus Index, and a mandate you can hold the fund to.ishares.com
• Income arrives monthly, from a fund with a track record stretching back to its 2017 launch.

Worth knowing

• SPBO Full maturity range means long-dated paper is in the mix, so the price moves more when rates move than short-maturity peers like IGSB or SPIB.
• Corporate credit only. No Treasuries or mortgages to lean on, so the fund rides the health of corporate borrowers as well as the rate cycle.ssga.com
• Investment grade by design, US issuers only. No high-yield or emerging-market bonds in the basket.

• SUSC The screen carries a price tag. Plain broad investment-grade corporate funds like USIG and VCIT charge a fraction of 0.18% for unscreened exposure.
• ESG Aware is a tilt, not a purge. The index targets better ESG characteristics in aggregate alongside business involvement screens, so familiar large issuers still appear.ishares.com
• Trading is moderate rather than heavy, so spreads deserve a look on larger orders.

Full SPBO profile⁠

Full SUSC profile⁠