Strength in iShares Intermediate Govt/Crdt Bd ETF's People Pillar is partially offset by an Average Process Pillar rating, leading to a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy earns an Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in corporate bonds and A rated bonds compared with category peers. The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

iShares Intermediate Govt/Crdt Bd ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. The main driver of the rating is the firm's five-year retention rate of 92% over the period. The parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 55% also bolsters the rating. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Their compelling success ratio suggests that the firm does well for investors and that this fund may benefit from that. Lastly, the process is limited by the fund's unremarkable long-term risk-adjusted performance. This can be seen in its five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the process has struggled over that period.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is: 

The investment seeks to track the investment results of the Bloomberg U.S. Intermediate Government/Credit Bond Index.  The fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the index, and it will invest at least 90% of its assets in fixed income securities of the types included in the index that the advisor believes will help the fund track the index. The index measures the performance of U.S. dollar-denominated U.S. Treasury bonds, and government-related bonds and investment-grade U.S. corporate bonds that have a remaining maturity of greater than one year and less than ten years.  

 This strategy's 12-month yield is 2.9%, lower than its average peers' 3.8%. It also has a 4.5% 30-day SEC yield (a standardized, point-in-time estimate of the fund’s future income return). While a lower yield may deliver less income, it also tends to indicate lower credit risk. But that isn't always the case. Over the past 12 months, the average yield of the fund has been lower than the average yield of its Morningstar Category peers. The portfolio's average surveyed credit quality is on par with peers, with both the fund and the average being rated A. In terms of long-term interest-rate risk, this strategy is on par with peers. The longer a strategy's duration, the more sensitive it is to shifts in interest rates. This fund, with a 3.8-year duration, is expected to gain 3.8% of its net asset value if interest rates drop by 1 percentage point, and vice versa.

Average

Process

iShares Intermediate Govt/Crdt Bd ETF's strong fixed income team drives the strategy's Above Average People Pillar rating. There are two managers listed on the fund: Karen Uyehara, James Mauro. The team is well equipped, with an average of 14 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 114 strategies, with a Silver asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

Above Average

People

BlackRock offers compelling options across asset classes and vehicles. It earns an Above Average rating for Parent. 
The firm’s approximately USD 8 trillion in assets under management, as of Sept. 30, 2022, gives it unparalleled scale and influence. It is a market-leading index fund provider globally, and its iShares exchange-traded fund franchise offers a low-cost lineup of core funds that investors can use to build a well-diversified portfolio for dirt cheap. The firm can be more adventurous in its ETF launches than some peers, so not everything it launches is appropriate for the masses. As a result, it is likely to have more ETF closures than peers that stick to the basic building blocks.  
The firm’s active fixed-income and multi-asset efforts also stand out as some of the best in the industry. Those benefit from BlackRock’s commitment to building a first-class risk management system via its Aladdin analytics software. The software is also available for sale to other firms and has proved to be a popular option for competitors, a testament to its usefulness. 
More recently, the firm has shifted its focus to ESG offerings and incorporating ESG across its investment lineup, leading to a political backlash in the United States.
BlackRock isn’t the best at everything it tries to do, but retail investors, financial advisors, and large institutions could all build robust portfolios using BlackRock’s products.

Parent

iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF

GVI tracks a market-value-weighted index of US Treasury, agency and investment-grade corporate bonds with remaining maturities of 1-10 years.

Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond ETF

iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF

iShares 3-7 Year Treasury Bond ETF

iShares 5-10 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

SPDR Portfolio Intermediate Term Treasury ETF

Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF

Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury ETF

Two renowned Wall Street firms, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, are advising investors to consider purchasing five-year U.S. Treasury notes, per Bloomberg, as quoted on Yahoo Finance.

News for iShares Intermediate Government/Credit Bond ETF ETF (GVI)