iShares $ Floating Rate Bond UCITS ETF

What this fund is

iShares $ Floating Rate Bond UCITS ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from iShares, traded under the ticker FLOT (ISIN IE00BZ048462). One trade buys a whole basket of holdings, so your money is spread out instead of riding on a single 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 USD LEAF AGENCY DIST, EUROPEAN BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION A MTN and INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTRUCT MTN. Spread across roughly 561 holdings (the ten largest ≈ 10.3%), no one position makes or breaks the fund.

Its biggest country exposures are ~34.9% United States, ~20.3% Supranational and ~8.1% Australia. Its heaviest sectors are ~54% Financials and ~21.2% Government. 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 0.1% a year — about €10 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 4.76% (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 USD. Its price has swung about 9.7% over the past year — a gauge of how much the value moves, not a judgement of quality. It launched in 2017. As with any investment, its value can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a guide to future results. (Fund data sourced from iShares.)