TIPS ETFs, compared honestly

Five funds cover essentially the whole market. They differ on two things only, cost and duration, and duration is the one that moves your money. The 2022 column below is the entire lesson.

The field

2022 total returns computed from dividend-adjusted closing prices and rounded; expense ratios as most recently published by the sponsors. Verify both on the fund pages before buying.

Picking within the field

Broad exposure: SCHP. It does what TIP does at a sixth of the cost; TIP's only remaining edge is its enormous options market and its history. Short and CPI-true: VTIP or STIP, functionally interchangeable, so use whichever trades free in your account. A deliberate bet on falling long real yields: LTPZ, and only that; twenty years of duration is a position, not a hedge, as its 2022 result shows.

All five hold the same collateral. What you choose is how much real-yield sensitivity to carry. Near historic highs in real yields, duration is better paid than it was at the 2021 lows, which favors the broad funds over the short ones for long-horizon money; the SCHP vs VTIP page walks that tradeoff in detail.

When no ETF is the right answer

A fund can hedge inflation, but it cannot promise a sum on a date. If the goal is "this much real income, these exact years," the instrument is a ladder of individual TIPS, which every fund on this page structurally cannot replicate because funds never mature. Price the real thing in the calculator; at recent yields the number surprises most people pleasantly.