How the IAF ETF could be used in portfolios
The iShares IAF ETF provides Australian investors with exposure to a portfolio of Australian investment-grade fixed income securities, which includes treasury bonds, corporate bonds and cash.
Investors could use the IAF ETF to diversify an existing portfolio and gain exposure to Australian bonds, or to create a regular income stream from the quarterly distributions offered by this ETF.
IAF exceeds our minimum market cap (FUM) criteria
The iShares IAF ETF had $1763.05 million of money invested when we last pulled the monthly numbers. Given IAF’s total funds under management (FUM) figure is over $100 million, the ETF has met our minimum criteria for the total amount of money invested, otherwise known as FUM. We draw the line at $100 million for ETFs in the Fixed interest – Australia sector because we believe that relative to smaller ETFs, achieving this amount of FUM de-risks the ETF.
IAF’s fees & costs explained
iShares charges investors a yearly management fee of 0.15% for the IAF ETF. This means that if you invested $2,000 in IAF for a full year, you could expect to pay management fees of around $3.00.
For context, the average management fee (MER) of all ETFs covered by Best ETFs Australia on our complete list of ASX ETFs is 0.51% or around $10.20 per $2,000 invested. Keep in mind, small changes in fees can make a big difference after 10 or 20 years.
Bottom line
This is just a quick overview of the IAF ETF. Before ‘testing the depth of the water with both feet’ so to speak, be sure to read the IAF ETF’s Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), available on the iShares website, or speak to your financial adviser. For another handy resource, take a look at our iShares IAF report. You can also use our complete list of ASX ETFs to search for a few different ETFs in the sector and conduct a side-by-side comparison using everything you’ve learned here.