A sound investment process and strong management team underpin iShares US Infrastructure ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's effective investment philosophy supports a High Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant overweight position in quality exposure and volatility exposure compared with category peers. High quality exposure is attributed to stocks with low financial leverage and strong returns on equity. And high volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a higher standard deviation of returns. 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

NRG Energy

Vistra Energy

Equitrans Midstream

MGE Energy

Taseko Mines

Century Aluminum

Avangrid

NextEra Energy

Constellation Energy Corp

Kinetik Holdings

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. iShares US Infrastructure ETF earns a High Process Pillar rating. The leading factor in the rating is the fund's excellent 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 was successful over that period. This fund tracks an index, which also increases its process rating. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, shows that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The firm's five-year retention rate of 92% strengthens the process as well.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks to track the NYSE® FactSet U.S. Infrastructure Index (the "underlying index") composed of equities of U.S. companies that have infrastructure exposure and that could benefit from a potential increase in domestic infrastructure activities.  The fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the index and in investments that are substantially identical to the component securities of the index and may invest up to 20% of its assets in certain futures, options and swap contracts, cash and cash equivalents, as well as in securities not included in the index, and but which BFA believes will help the fund track the index. 

 The portfolio is overweight in basic materials by 13.8 percentage points in terms of assets compared with the category average, and its consumer cyclical allocation is similar to the category. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are utilities and real estate, underweight the average by 5.6 and 4.0 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 159 holdings and is less top-heavy than peers. Specifically, 8.5% of the strategy's assets are concentrated within the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category average's 28.7%. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 26% of the fund's holdings have turned over, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

High

Process

iShares’s team is strong compared with others in the industry, resulting in an Above Average People Pillar rating. There are three managers listed on the fund: Paul Whitehead, Jennifer Hsui, Greg Savage. Experience on the team is abundant, with 18 years of average portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 257 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 US Infrastructure ETF

IFRA tracks an index of US-listed infrastructure companies that derive a significant portion of their revenue from within the US.

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Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P.

Caterpillar

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Fluor

Nucor

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iShares Core Aggressive Allocation ETF

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UBS London ETRACS Monthly Reset 2xLeveraged ETN 2015-13.3.45 Sr Lkd to ISE Exclusively Homebldrs Idx Ser A

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SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF

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News for iShares US Infrastructure ETF ETF (IFRA)