UTHY vs VGLT

UTHYBUS Treasury 30 Year Bond ETF

VGLTAVanguard Long-Term Treasury ETF

In short

UTHY Most long-Treasury funds blend dozens of bonds into an average. UTHY holds one: the current 30-year, rolling into the next when it's auctioned. Pure exposure to the far end of the curve, with monthly payouts instead of a bond's semiannual coupons.

VGLT Three basis points for the long end of the Treasury curve. VGLT tracks a market-weighted index of long-dated government bonds, pays income monthly, and charges a fraction of what this category typically costs.

Stated mandate

UTHY The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of its Bloomberg Treasury benchmark.

VGLT The fund seeks to track a market-weighted Treasury index with a long-term dollar-weighted average maturity. It uses index sampling and invests at least 80% of assets in securities included in the target index.

Why people hold it

• UTHY Single-security design. It tracks the Bloomberg US Treasury Bellwether 30Y index, meaning the newest 30-year bond, then hands off to the next one at auction. No maturity bucket, no drifting average duration.fminvest.com
• The underlying bond pays interest twice a year. The fund aims to pay monthly, and handles the rolling into each newly issued 30-year for you.fminvest.com
• At 0.15%, it sits exactly at the median fee for long-Treasury ETFs, same sticker as TLT, the category's best-known name.
• Part of F/m's US Benchmark Series, the shelf that first wrapped an individual Treasury in an ETF, with a fund at each benchmark point on the curve.fminvest.combusinesswire.com

• VGLT 0.03% a year, a fifth of TLT's 0.15% and the lowest fee among its long-Treasury peers.vanguard.com
• Sticks to the mandate: index sampling of the Bloomberg U.S. Long Treasury Bond Index, with at least 80% of assets in index securities and one of the tightest implementations in its group.vanguard.com
• Pure US Treasury paper, roughly 70 bonds, no corporate credit risk in the mix, with distributions paid monthly.vanguard.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, which generally keeps bid-ask spreads modest for a long-bond vehicle.

Worth knowing

• UTHY One bond, no cushion. You get the full rate sensitivity of a fresh 30-year and nothing else in the portfolio to soften a move in long yields.fminvest.com
• Cheaper routes to the long end exist: VGLT charges 0.03% and BBLB 0.04%, against 0.15% here.
• Smaller and less heavily traded than the long-Treasury giants, and it launched in 2023, so the track record is short.

• VGLT Duration is the point and the risk. Long maturities mean prices swing hard when long-term yields move, in both directions.
• Not a 20-year-and-out pure play. The benchmark is the broad long Treasury index, so duration runs shorter than TLT or BBLB and shorter still than sibling EDV.
• Fixed coupons from a government issuer: no credit spread to earn, and inflation erodes the real value of that income.

Full UTHY profile⁠

Full VGLT profile⁠