iShares 0-5 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF

iShares 0-5 Year Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from iShares, traded under the ticker SLQD (ISIN US46434V1008). In a single purchase you get a diversified basket of holdings rather than a stake in just one business. 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. 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 0.06% a year — about €6 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 1.9% over the past year, which describes how much its price tends to move rather than whether it is good. It launched in 2013. 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.)