Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Every quarter, institutional investment managers with $100 million or more in 13(f) securities report their holdings to the SEC (SEC Form 13F FAQ). The filings are public but not built for prospecting: each is one firm's list of issuer names, share counts and values, with no asset class tags and no quarter-over-quarter comparison. Finding which RIAs hold a given ETF means pulling filings firm by firm and doing the matching yourself.
Dakota Marketplace does that work for you. Its 13F tab holds 2,621,000+ holdings, including 938,000+ ETF positions, searchable by ticker, asset class and product structure, with Status fields that flag each position as New, Increased, Decreased or Sold-Out versus last quarter.
We used that data to find which high yield bond ETFs the most RIAs actually own. No fund dominates: iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond (HYG) leads with just 36 RIAs for the quarter ending December 31, 2025, followed by iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond (USHY) at 33 and iShares 0-5 Year High Yield Corporate Bond (SHYG) at 30. High yield is also a category where active management is gaining ground, as active strategies took a record 38% of fixed income ETF flows in 2025 (iShares, December 2025).
In this article, we’ll rank the 10 high yield bond ETFs held by the most RIAs, show where the dollars concentrate, and break down what a small, scattered high yield sleeve means for managers selling credit strategies.
The Top 10 High Yield Bond ETFs Held by RIAs
Ranked by the number of distinct RIAs reporting a position in 13F filings for the quarter ending December 31, 2025.
|
Rank
|
Ticker
|
ETF
|
Category
|
RIA holdings
|
|
1
|
HYG
|
iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
Broad high yield
|
36
|
|
2
|
USHY
|
iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
Broad high yield
|
33
|
|
3
|
SHYG
|
iShares 0-5 Year High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
Short duration
|
30
|
|
4
|
SPHY
|
SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF
|
Broad high yield
|
23
|
|
5
|
JNK
|
SPDR Bloomberg High Yield Bond ETF
|
Broad high yield
|
19
|
|
6
|
SJNK
|
SPDR Bloomberg Short Term High Yield Bond ETF
|
Short duration
|
18
|
|
7
|
ANGL
|
VanEck Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF
|
Fallen angels
|
17
|
|
8
|
HYLS
|
First Trust Tactical High Yield ETF
|
Active
|
15
|
|
9
|
HYDB
|
iShares High Yield Systematic Bond ETF
|
Systematic
|
12
|
|
10
|
FALN
|
iShares Fallen Angels USD Bond ETF
|
Fallen angels
|
11
|
Source: Dakota Marketplace 13F holdings data, quarter ending December 31, 2025.
What the Ranking Shows
1. High Yield Is a Smaller, More Scattered Sleeve (136 RIAs, $777M)
136 RIAs hold a high yield bond ETF, with $777M in holdings, about a third of the $2.2B RIAs hold in investment grade corporate ETFs. No fund reaches 40 RIAs. The broad index funds (HYG, USHY, SPHY, JNK and Xtrackers HYLB) together reach 76 RIAs.
High yield usually sits beside investment grade rather than replacing it. 103 of the 136 high yield holders also own an investment grade corporate ETF.
2. RIAs Limit Duration and Lean on Quality (49 Short Duration, 24 Fallen Angels)
As with investment grade, RIAs keep high yield short. SHYG and SJNK both make the top 10, and 49 RIAs hold a short-duration high yield ETF.
Fallen angel funds take a quality-tilted approach to high yield. They buy bonds that were recently downgraded from investment grade, which are often stronger credits than the rest of the junk bond market. Two make the top 10, ANGL and FALN, and 24 RIAs hold at least one.
3. Active and Target-Maturity Funds Hold a Third of the Money
Active and systematic high yield ETFs, including HYLS, HYDB and PGIM Active High Yield (PHYL), reach 48 RIAs with $106M in holdings, about 14% of the category.
Target-maturity funds matter even more by dollars. Invesco BulletShares and iShares iBonds high yield ETFs reach just 15 RIAs, but hold $159M, about 20% of RIA high yield ETF dollars.
Want to see which RIAs in your territory hold these funds? Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace.
Breadth vs. Dollars: Where RIA Assets Concentrate
The ETFs held by the most RIAs are not always the ones holding the most RIA money. RIAs reported $777M in high yield ETF holdings for the quarter ending December 31, 2025, and the top 10 funds account for $464M of it, about 60%.
|
Ticker
|
ETF
|
RIA holding
|
RIA holdings
|
|
BSJQ
|
Invesco BulletShares 2026 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
7
|
$84M
|
|
HYG
|
iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
36
|
$80M
|
|
JNK
|
SPDR Bloomberg High Yield Bond ETF
|
19
|
$76M
|
|
SPHY
|
SPDR Portfolio High Yield Bond ETF
|
23
|
$75M
|
|
USHY
|
iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
33
|
$52M
|
|
BSJR
|
Invesco BulletShares 2027 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF
|
7
|
$52M
|
The largest pool of RIA high yield money sits in a fund held by just seven RIAs. Invesco BulletShares 2026 High Yield (BSJQ) holds $84M, an average of $12.0M per firm and more than HYG. Its 2027 sibling, BSJR, averages $7.5M.
The most widely held funds draw smaller tickets. HYG averages $2.2M per RIA, USHY $1.6M and SHYG $1.4M. JNK has about half as many holders as HYG but nearly as much money, averaging $4.0M.
Source: Dakota Marketplace 13F holdings data, quarter ending December 31, 2025.
What This Means for Investment Firms Pitching RIAs
For most RIAs, high yield is a small satellite position beside an investment grade core. That makes it less a question of whether to own junk bonds than of how much risk to take and through which structure.
- Pitch beside investment grade, not instead of it. 103 of the 136 high yield holders also own investment grade corporates. Frame your strategy as a yield enhancement to an existing credit allocation.
- Lead with risk control. Short-duration, fallen angel and target-maturity funds all show RIAs managing high yield risk carefully. Strategies with clear downside discipline, quality screens or defined maturity will match that mindset.
- Find the target-maturity buyers. The 15 RIAs in high yield BulletShares and iBonds hold 20% of the category’s dollars. They’re the first call for defined-maturity credit and bond ladder strategies.
- Use high yield as a gateway to private credit. An RIA holding high yield ETFs has already accepted credit risk for extra yield. That makes it a natural conversation for private credit, BDCs and interval funds, which don’t show up in 13F ETF data.
Turn 13F Holdings Into a Prospect List
Every number in this post came from the 13F tab in Dakota Marketplace. Members filter 2,621,000+ holdings by account name, investment strategy, ticker, asset class, sub-asset class, product structure, fund balance range and filing period, and switch between a By Investor and a By Fund view.
Seven new fields make the data faster to act on:
- Quarter-over-quarter change on any holding: Previous No. of Shares, Previous Quarter Value and Status (New, Increased, Decreased, Equal Shares or Sold-Out) show who is adding or trimming a position, with no filing to open and no math to do.
- ETF exposure on every account: ETF AUM, ETF AUM %, Active ETF AUM and Passive ETF AUM answer "does this RIA use ETFs, and how much?" right on the account page.
That gives investment firms three ways to build a sharper list:
- Find who holds a competitor's fund. Search a ticker and pull every firm reporting it.
- Spot momentum. Filter by Status to see which RIAs bought or added to a position last quarter, and which sold out.
- Target real holdings, not stated mandates. An RIA that leans active in its ETF book is a very different conversation than one that runs almost entirely passive.
Members can now build and save their own 13F lists with Create a List and My Lists, then export any list to Excel to share or print.
Find the RIAs Behind the Holdings
Dakota Marketplace tracks 8,700+ RIAs and 48,300+ RIA contacts, with 13F holdings attached to each firm profile. Filter by ETF ticker or asset class held, by RIA AUM, by metro area, or by decision-maker title such as CIO or portfolio manager.
Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace to know what an RIA already owns before you pitch what it should add.
