State Street® SPDR® Bloomberg Short Term International Treasury Bond ETF

What this fund is

State Street® SPDR® Bloomberg Short Term International Treasury Bond ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from SPDR, traded under the ticker BWZ (ISIN US78464A3344). 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 broadly across markets worldwide. It follows the Bloomberg 1-3 Year Global Treasury ex-US Capped Index index (passive investing): it tracks the market rather than relying on a manager, keeping running costs down, and its largest holdings include BELGIUM KINGDOM SR UNSECURED REGS 03/28 5.5, JAPAN (10 YEAR ISSUE) BONDS 03/28 0.1 and AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT SR UNSECURED REGS 04/29 3.25. Spread across roughly 286 holdings (the ten largest ≈ 11.8%), no one position makes or breaks the fund.

Its biggest country exposures are ~21.4% Japan, ~5% France and ~4.2% United Kingdom. By industry it concentrates most in ~91.4% Government and ~0% Materials. 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 0.35% a year — about €35 a year on a €10,000 holding, taken automatically from the fund. It holds the underlying investments directly (physical replication); it is domiciled in the United States and trades in USD.

Its price has swung about 6.8% over the past year — a gauge of how much the value moves, not a judgement of quality. It launched in 2009. 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 SPDR.)