iShares U.S. Basic Materials ETF

What this fund is

iShares U.S. Basic Materials ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from iShares, traded under the ticker IYM (ISIN US4642878387). 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 owning small slices of companies, so you share in their growth when they do well — and their falls when they don't, spread across its target market.

It is commonly used to tilt a portfolio towards one market, usually alongside broader, more global funds rather than on its own. Its ongoing charge (TER) is 0.38% a year — about €38 a year on a €10,000 holding, taken automatically from the fund. It holds the underlying investments directly (physical replication). Its price has swung about 19.8% over the past year, which describes how much its price tends to move rather than whether it is good.

It launched in 2000. 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.)