SPTS vs VGSH

SPTSAState Street SPDR Portfolio Short Term Treasury ETF

VGSHAVanguard Short-Term Treasury ETF

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.

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

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.

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

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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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 SPTS profile⁠

Full VGSH profile⁠