Schwab Ultra-Short Income ETF

What this fund is

Schwab Ultra-Short Income ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from Schwab, traded under the ticker SCUS (ISIN US8085246234). In a single purchase you get a diversified basket of holdings rather than a stake in just one business. In plain terms it is about very short-term, cash-like instruments, aimed at protecting your money and earning a little interest rather than growing it, spread across its target market. Its largest holdings include TRI-PARTY WELLS FARGO SECURITIES L, TRI-PARTY CITIGROUP GLOBAL MARKETS and TRI-PARTY BOASI - BOFA SECURITIES. It holds around 157 positions (the ten largest ≈ 21.8%), spreading risk so no single holding decides your outcome.

By geography it is weighted towards ~95.3% US, ~3.5% CA and ~1.2% JP. Its heaviest sectors are ~32.8% Financials and ~19.5% Other. Funds like this are often used as the steadier, lower-swing part of a portfolio — the ballast that cushions the ups and downs of shares. Its ongoing charge (TER) is 0.14% a year — about €14 a year on a €10,000 holding, taken automatically from the fund. Income such as dividends is paid out to you as cash (a distributing share class), and over the last year it paid out roughly 4.09% (its trailing yield).

It holds the underlying investments directly (physical replication); it is domiciled in the United States and trades in USD. Its price has swung about 0.7% over the past year — a gauge of how much the value moves, not a judgement of quality. Like any investment, it can lose value as well as gain, and what it did before does not predict what it will do next. (Fund data sourced from Schwab.)