iShares £ Corp Bond 0-5yr UCITS ETF

What this fund is

iShares £ Corp Bond 0-5yr UCITS ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from iShares, traded under the ticker IS15 (ISIN IE00B5L65R35). It lets you buy a basket of holdings in a single trade, spreading your money across them rather than one company. In plain terms it is about lending to governments and companies in return for regular interest, which tends to be steadier than shares but grows more slowly, spread across its target market. Its largest holdings include BLK ICS STER LEAF AGENCY DIST, BANK OF AMERICA CORP MTN RegS and BARCLAYS PLC MTN RegS. With about 447 holdings (the ten largest ≈ 6.4%), your money is diversified rather than concentrated in a handful of names.

Geographically it leans ~38.5% United Kingdom, ~22.2% United States and ~10% France. By industry it concentrates most in ~56.1% Financials and ~9.6% Consumer Discretionary. Funds like this are often used as the steadier, lower-swing part of a portfolio — the ballast that cushions the ups and downs of shares. Its ongoing charge (TER) is 0.2% a year — about €20 a year on a €10,000 holding, taken automatically from the fund. Income such as dividends is paid out to you as cash (a distributing share class), and over the last year it paid out roughly 5.51% (its trailing yield).

It holds the underlying investments directly (physical replication); it is domiciled in Ireland and UCITS-regulated, a European standard built to protect everyday investors and trades in GBP. Its price has swung about 4.4% over the past year, which describes how much its price tends to move rather than whether it is good. It launched in 2011. Like any investment, it can lose value as well as gain, and what it did before does not predict what it will do next. (Fund data sourced from iShares.)