A sound investment process and strong management team underpin iShares Paris-Aligned ClmMSCIWldExUSAETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest 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 underweight position in liquidity exposure and momentum exposure compared with category peers. Low liquidity risk exposure is attributed to stocks with a low trading volume, limiting managers' flexibility. And low momentum exposure is rooted in holding stocks that are not currently on a winning streak and instead holding those that managers believe are undervalued. 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

ASML Hld

Suncor Energy

Moelis

AstraZeneca

Novan

SAP SE

Rogers

Royal Bank of Canada

ClearBridge American Energy MLP Fund, Inc.

Osisko Gold Royalties

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 Paris-Aligned ClmMSCIWldExUSAETF earns a High Process Pillar rating. 

The most important driver of the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 55% also influences 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 commendable success ratio suggests that the firm does well for investors and that this fund may benefit from that. The firm's five-year retention rate of 92% reinforces the process as well.

 This strategy leans toward smaller, higher-growth companies compared with its average peer in the Foreign Large Blend Morningstar Category. Looking at additional factor exposure, this strategy consistently held some companies with relatively lower trading volume compared with Morningstar Category peers in the last few years. Less-liquid stocks might offer strong returns to compensate for their risks, but they can be harder and more expensive to trade in bear markets. In the latest month, the strategy was also less exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with Morningstar Category peers. This strategy has also taken a contrarian approach with lower exposure to momentum stocks over peers in recent years. Momentum tends to be a powerful force in asset markets, as stocks that have done well recently usually continue to do so in the short term. As top performers change, this can sometimes be hard to capture without higher trading costs. Similarly, in recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to the Momentum factor than peers. During the last few years, this strategy has also tilted in favor of high-quality stocks, those that have demonstrated low financial leverage and solid return on equity. Though it may trail peers during an economic boom, this orientation contributes to helping it weather periods of economic stress better. In this month, the strategy also had more exposure to the Quality factor over its peers. More information on a fund and its respective category's factor exposure can be found in the Factor Profile module within the Portfolio section. 

 The portfolio is overweight in real estate and financial services relative to the category average by 4.0 and 3.6 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are energy and consumer defensive, underweight the average by 4.6 and 2.6 percentage points of assets, respectively. The strategy owns 461 securities and invests 15.0% of assets in its top 10 holdings, similar to the category average.

High

Process

iShares Paris-Aligned ClmMSCIWldExUSAETF's strong team drives the strategy's Above Average People Pillar rating. There are three managers listed on the fund: Greg Savage, Jennifer Hsui, Paul Whitehead. Experience on the team is abundant, with 18 years of average portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 258 strategies, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Silver asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position 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 Paris-Aligned Climate Msci World EX USA Etf

PABD tracks a tier-weighted index of large- and mid-cap stocks in developed markets excluding the US. The fund utilizes ESG criteria aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement when selecting and weighing securities.

Qraft AI-Pilot US Large Cap Dynamic Beta Etf

BNY Mellon Global Emerging Markets ETF

BNY Mellon Sustainable International Equity ETF

BNY Mellon Sustainable US Equity ETF

DoubleLine Commercial Real Estate ETF

Nationwide Dow Jones Risk-Managed Income ETF

Nationwide S&P 500 Risk-Managed Income ETF

Nationwide Russell 2000 Risk-Managed Income ETF

Nationwide Risk-Managed Income ETF

Qraft AI-Enhanced US Next Value ETF

iShares Paris - Aligned Climate MSCI USA ETF

Strive 500 ETF

Pacer Metaurus US Large Cap Target Dividend 300 ETF

Vaneck Bitcoin Strategy ETF

The shortened week after the launch of the first-ever spot bitcoin ETFs saw almost as many closures announced as there were launches. Both launches of new ETFs and closures of existing ones have been quite strong so far in 2024.

This Week in ETFs: iShares Debuts Ex-US Climate Fund

News for Ishares Paris-Aligned Climate Msci World EX USA Etf ETF (PABD)