SPTS vs USSH

SPTSAState Street SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF

USSHBWisdomTree 1-3 Year Laddered Treasury Fund

In short

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.

USSH Short Treasuries, built as a ladder. USSH tracks Bloomberg's laddered 1-3 year Treasury index, holding roughly two dozen positions spread across the maturity range, and pays out monthly.

Stated mandate

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.

USSH The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg US Treasury 1-3 Year Laddered Index.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• USSH The ladder is the whole idea: maturities are spread across the one-to-three-year range by index rule, not clustered wherever the Treasury happened to issue most.wisdomtree.com
• Narrow, literal mandate: US Treasury debt maturing in one to three years, and the fund has tracked that index very closely since launch.
• Pays monthly, holds roughly two dozen Treasuries, and runs as a plain 1940 Act fund. No derivatives sleeve, no leverage, no options overlay.

Worth knowing

• 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.

• USSH At 0.15% it matches the category median, but the largest short-Treasury trackers (VGSH, SCHO, SPTS) charge 0.03% for similar exposure.
• Small and thinly traded beside the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads can run wider. Limit orders are the standard workaround.
• Launched in 2024, so the live record is short and spans a single rate backdrop.

Full SPTS profile⁠

Full USSH profile⁠