BlackRock announced the launch of the iShares Total USD Fixed Income Market ETF, the industry’s first index ETF that seeks to provide investors with comprehensive access to the full taxable US bond market in a single, efficient solution.¹

“Bond markets have evolved dramatically over the years, and investors need tools that keep pace with this change,” said Steve Laipply, Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs. “BTOT offers a single, convenient way to access this broader opportunity set, helping investors tap into some of the most attractive areas in fixed income today and build well-diversified portfolios.”

The US fixed income market has expanded beyond traditional benchmarks to include sectors such as bank loans, inflation-linked securities, and floating rate notes. At the same time, structural changes in the bond market and increased interest rate volatility may have heightened the need for diversified sources of income and resilience in portfolios. BTOT aims to meet this need by delivering comprehensive exposure in one ETF.

BTOT seeks to track the Bloomberg US Total Fixed Income Market Index, providing access to sectors historically excluded from broad multi-sector index fixed income products. The index expands exposure by 28% beyond the Bloomberg US Aggregate Index and 9% beyond the Bloomberg US Universal Index.²

BTOT can serve as a key building block for investor portfolios, complementing BlackRock’s multi-sector fixed income suite — AGG for investment-grade exposure and IUSB for core-plus strategies — while adding bank loans, floating-rate notes and TIPS for greater diversification, potential income, and resilience.

“We are proud to collaborate with BlackRock on this ETF launch, which highlights our shared commitment to innovating in lockstep with the growth and evolution of the fixed income markets,” said Nick Gendron, Global Head of Fixed Income Index Product Management at Bloomberg Index Services Limited. “The Bloomberg US Total Fixed Income Market Index was built to reflect how fixed income portfolios have expanded. This benchmark tracks the full investable fixed income universe across all sectors and ratings and offers a widely diverse and transparent measure of today’s US fixed income markets.”

iShares is a global leader in ETFs, managing over $5 trillion across its platform, including more than $1 trillion in bond ETFs.⁴ Since pioneering the first bond ETF in 2002, BlackRock has continued to redefine fixed income investing through innovation and scale.

Source: BlackRock