Blackrock iShares

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Blackrock iShares is the largest manager of exchange traded funds in both the United States and across the globe. Blackrock iShares are available in the United States and Canada; the United Kingdom; continental Europe; Mexico and Latin America; and in Asia and Australia. At year end 2016, Blackrock iShares was managing $983.453 billion in U.S. assets.

In the United States, Blackrock iShares track indexes provided by Barclays Capital; Cohen & Steers; Dow Jones; FTSE; FTSE Xinhua; iBoxx; JP Morgan; Morningstar; MSCI; NASDAQ: the NYSE; Russell; and Standard & Poors.

History
A timeline of the history of what is now Blackrock iShares:


 * 1996: Barclays Global Investors (BGI) created when Barclays bought Wells Fargo Nikko Advisors (a joint venture between San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. and Tokyo-based Nikko Cordial Securities Inc.) and merged it with its BZW Investment Management unit. The year saw the introduction of World Equity Benchmark (WEBs) exchange traded funds. WEBs were single country stock funds based on MSCI single country indexes.
 * 2000: Launch of iShares ETFs in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
 * 2001: Launch of iShares ETFs in Hong Kong and Japan.
 * 2002: iShares fixed income ETFs launched in the United States.
 * 2006: Barclays buys the German exchange-traded funds provider Indexchange from HypoVereinsbank for 240 million euros. The purchase enables iShares to expand its presence in the European markets.
 * 2007: Launch of iShares in Mexico; launch of high yield bond and municipal bond ETFs in the United States.
 * 2008: First all ETF 529 savings plan created for fee-only advisors.
 * 2009: BGI sells iShares to Blackrock for $13.5 billion;    launched ETF (401k) for financial advisors.
 * 2013: Blackrock iShares purchases Credit Suisse's ETFs.

The annual growth of iShares assets under management (AUM) is documented in the above table.

iShares ETF lineup
The extensive lineup of iShares ETFs allows investors to implement a wide variety of low cost indexed portfolios. In October 2012, iShares introduced a package of ten low expense ETFs (six existing funds plus four new issues) designed and marketed for investors to implement strategic asset allocations. The Core funds are listed below.

The following table compares ETF offerings from iShares, Schwab, SPDR and Vanguard. All ETFs trade commission-free at most brokerages.

Portfolio construction
Examples of Bogleheads-style investing portfolios using iShares ETFs can be found in Lazy portfolios.