A strong management team and sound investment process underpin iShares ESG 1-5 Year USD Corp Bd ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's effective investment approach earns an Above Average Process 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 ESG 1-5 Year USD Corp Bd ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 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. The predominant contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. Impressive risk-adjusted performance also strengthens the process. This can be seen in the fund's five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the process was successful over that period. Lastly, the process is limited by its parent firm's risk-adjusted performance, as shown by the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.1 stars. A lower star rating suggests that the firm has struggled to outperform on a risk-adjusted basis.

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

The investment seeks to track the investment results of the Bloomberg MSCI US Corporate 1-5 Year ESG Focus Index.  The fund generally will invest at least 90% of its assets in the component securities of the underlying index and may invest up to 10% of its assets in certain futures, options and swap contracts, cash and cash equivalents. The index has been developed by Bloomberg Finance L.P. and its affiliates with environmental, social and governance ("ESG") rating inputs from MSCI ESG Research LLC pursuant to an agreement between MSCI ESG Research and Bloomberg Index Services Limited, and a subsidiary of Bloomberg.  

 This strategy's 12-month yield is 2.9%, lower than its average peers' 3.7%. It also has a 5.0% 30-day SEC yield (a measure similar to yield-to-maturity). A lower yield 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 2.6-year duration, is expected to gain 2.6% of its net asset value if interest rates drop by 1 percentage point, and vice versa.

Above Average

Process

iShares ESG 1-5 Year USD Corp Bd ETF's strong team drives the strategy's Above Average People Pillar rating. There are two managers listed on the fund: James Mauro, Scott Radell. The team is well equipped, with an average of 14 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of four strategies, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their 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.

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 ESG Aware 1-5 Year USD Corporate Bond ETF

SUSB tracks an index of USD-denominated, investment-grade, short-term corporate debt, selected based on positive ESG characteristics. Holdings are optimally weighted to provide a similar risk and return of the Bloomberg US Corporate 1-5 years Index.

iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF

iShares ESG Aware US Aggregate Bond ETF

Ishares ESG Advanced Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

iShares ESG Advanced Total USD Bond Market ETF

iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF

iShares Trust iShares 1-5 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

Nuveen Enhanced Yield U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF

NuShares ESG U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF

iShares ESG USD Corporate Bond ETF

Vanguard ESG U.S. Corporate Bond ETF

Vanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

As the energy sector continues to trounce other sectors in 2022, a portfolio of corporate bonds with reduced energy sector exposure seems less than ideal. However, year-to-date, investors have bucked the trend to put net millions into ESG bond ETFs.

Millions Are Still Flowing Into ESG Bond ETFs

iShares Global Green Bond ETF

First Trust EIP Carbon Impact ETF

SPDR S&P 500 ESG ETF

FlexShares STOXX US ESG Impact Index Fund

FlexShares STOXX Global ESG Select Index Fund

Columbia International ESG Equity Income ETF

iShares MSCI USA ESG Optimized ETF

Invesco Real Assets ESG ETF

Blackrock US Carbon Transition Readiness ETF

Xtrackers S&P 500 ESG ETF

Momentum for the U.S. Responsible Investing industry picked up in January when President Joe Biden signed executive orders to re-enter into the Paris Climate Agreement. In 2021 through October month-end, there were 110 equity and fixed income funds that launched focused on Responsible Investing—71 RI-related ETFs and 39 RI-related mutual funds.

Responsible Investing Making Strides With U.S. Investors, Fund Companies, And Regulators In 2021

iShares MSCI EAFE ESG Optimized ETF

iShares MSCI EM ESG Optimized ETF

iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA Small-Cap ETF

How the largest ETF issuer's funds differ on ESG criteria.

Differences Among iShares' ESG ETFs

Given the magnitude of the changes we foresee, long-term investors may find opportunities in the technologies and innovations that create renewable energy sources or reduce the carbon intensity of energy production. Net zero is about reducing greenhouse gas emissions so that over time we can achieve an overall balance between emissions produced, and the emissions removed from the overall atmosphere.

News for iShares ESG Aware 1-5 Year USD Corporate Bond ETF ETF (SUSB)