USHY vs ZTOP

USHYAiShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

ZTOPBF/m High Yield 100 ETF

In short

USHY The wide-angle lens on junk bonds: about 1,900 US dollar high yield corporate issues for 0.08% a year, a fifth of what the typical fund in its category charges. Broad, cheap, heavily traded, and it pays monthly.

ZTOP Most junk-bond funds sample the whole market. This one holds only the 100 largest, most liquid US high-yield issuers, weights them equally, and reshuffles monthly. A quality screen, not a market cross-section.

Stated mandate

USHY The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. dollar-denominated high yield corporate bonds.

ZTOP The Fund seeks before-fee-and-expense results that generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg U.S. High Yield Top 100 Quality Select Equal Weighted Index.

Why people hold it

• USHY Charges 0.08% a year while the median high yield fund in its cohort runs 0.40%. Cheap rent on an expensive-to-run corner of the bond market.
• Holds about 1,900 bonds against the ICE BofA US High Yield Constrained Index: the broad market, not a curated slice of the most liquid names.ishares.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the more actively traded in high yield, which tends to keep bid-ask spreads thin even on busy days.
• Pays monthly and has tracked its index tightly since its 2017 launch, one of the closer index matches in its peer group.

• ZTOP Equal weighting means no single borrower dominates, and the index is reconstituted and rebalanced monthly to stay on the biggest, most liquid issuers.businesswire.comfminvest.com
• The index rules screen out pay-in-kind and zero-coupon bonds, the corners of junk where cash actually stops showing up.bbhub.io
• The 0.39% fee sits right at the high-yield category median, and the fund pays monthly.
• The portfolio matches its stated mandate closely, and it lands in the upper half of a crowded high-yield field.

Worth knowing

• USHY High yield means below-investment-grade borrowers. When credit gets stressed this asset class drops with stocks instead of cushioning them.
• Cheaper tickets sit on the same shelf: SCYB at 0.03% and SPHY at 0.05%.
• This is a fund, not a bond ladder. No maturity date hands your principal back; the basket rolls on indefinitely.

• ZTOP Plain-vanilla rivals cost a fraction of this: SCYB, SPHY and USHY all price under a tenth of a percent. The screen is what you are paying up for.
• Launched in 2025, so it has not yet traded through a full credit cycle, and its history is short next to the category's veterans.
• Concentrating on the largest issuers tilts the portfolio up in credit quality and away from the deep-discount, lower-rated end of junk.fminvest.cometftrends.com

Full USHY profile⁠

Full ZTOP profile⁠