Guide · US Aggregate Bond
Best aggregate bond ETFs
An aggregate fund is the Bloomberg US Aggregate in ETF form: Treasuries, agency MBS, investment-grade corporates, duration around six years. BND, AGG, and SCHZ hold roughly the same 10,000 bonds. About 30% of the book is credit-sensitive, so these sag with stocks in a credit scare the way a Treasury-only fund does not.
Published May 17, 2026 · Updated Sep 16, 2026 · Fund data as of Oct 24, 2026
Why the ranking looks like this
BND, AGG, and SCHZ track Bloomberg-Agg-family indexes at the same 3 bps. Score gaps are AUM, not construction. Which brokerage you sit at, and which ticker you want as a TLH partner, is the actual choice.
See the methodology for the full formula behind each sub-score.
The funds
This order is editorial. The composite on each card is live. The full score-ranked table is on the category page.
-
89
composite / 100
Vanguard's total bond market fund. 3 basis points and the largest of the three by AUM. The default bond leg in a 3-fund portfolio.
- Expense
- 0.030%
- AUM
- $389.05B†
- Issuer
- Vanguard
- Detail
- BND page →
-
89
composite / 100
iShares' core US aggregate bond fund. Same 3 basis points; tracks the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index (BND uses the float-adjusted variant — same idea, marginal weighting differences). Standard TLH partner for BND.
- Expense
- 0.030%
- AUM
- $135.65B
- Issuer
- iShares
- Detail
- AGG page →
-
89
composite / 100
Schwab's aggregate bond fund. Also 3 basis points. Smaller AUM than BND or AGG but functionally interchangeable; useful as a third TLH partner.
- Expense
- 0.030%
- AUM
- $10.45B
- Issuer
- Schwab
- Detail
- SCHZ page →
† Whole fund: this ETF is one share class of a fund that also sells mutual-fund shares, and the figure covers all of them. Our sources don't report the ETF class on its own.
Also in the category
Other funds in the same category, ranked by composite score.
When an aggregate fund is the wrong tool
Aggregate funds have ~30% of holdings in corporate and securitized credit, which gives up some of the diversification benefit a Treasury-only fund would provide against equity drawdowns. Investors who want bonds specifically to hedge equity risk (rather than to harvest the credit risk premium) sometimes hold a pure-Treasury fund (GOVT, VGIT) instead. The compare pages show the holdings difference directly.
Account placement
Bond fund distributions are largely taxed at ordinary-income rates, not the lower qualified-dividend rate that applies to stock funds. The standard placement rule is to hold bond funds in tax-advantaged accounts (IRA, 401k) when space allows, freeing the taxable account for stock funds whose long-term-cap-gains and qualified-dividend treatment is more efficient.
Funds are pulled from the live composite for this category. Notes are editorial and refresh with the catalog.
PlainIndex publishes data and editorial commentary — nothing here is personalized investment advice. Read the methodology for how the scores referenced here are computed.