Not exact matches
It's «almost» identical because the fund will take a
small management
fee, you will have to pay
annual taxes on capital gains (if you hold the investment in a taxable account), and because the fund has to actually invest in the underlying stocks, there will be
small differences due to rounding and timing of the fund's trades.
Over the life of your IRA, even a
small difference in
annual fees can amount to thousands of dollars.
In my mind, these
differences a
small enough that they are not worth worrying about, and you shouldn't worry about having to pay a higher
annual fee to get all the additional benefits that come with a Sapphire Preferred card.