iShares Aaa - A Rated Corporate Bond ETF

iShares Aaa - A Rated Corporate Bond ETF (QLTA) tracks a Bloomberg index of fixed-rate, U.S. dollar corporate bonds from U.S. and foreign companies. Every bond must be rated A3 or higher on Moody's scale, or the equivalent. That cuts out the lowest tier of investment-grade debt, and the fund pays income monthly. The tradeoff is cost: its 0.15% expense ratio is about double the 0.07% average of similar funds.

• Over the year to Oct 27, 2026, QLTA returned -2.0%, 7th of 8 among similar funds.
• Its 5-year annualized return was -0.5% and its 10-year +1.8%.
• In the 2020 COVID crash it fell 15.2% and regained its old high 2.3 months after the low.
• Its worst full calendar year was 2022 (-15.1%); its best was 2019 (+12.5%).
• The deepest fall in its price history was 22.3% (Aug 6, 2020 to Oct 20, 2022), not yet recovered.

As of Jul 31, 2026, the fund held 3,501 securities; the ten largest made up 1.81% of assets, and 9.77% sat in cash and money-market holdings.

The bonds mature in 10.7 years on average (weighted by size), with an average coupon of 4.46%.

• Over the three months to Jul 31, 2026, investors withdrew a net $278.1M (creations minus redemptions, per the N-PORT report).
• Monthly total returns reported for that quarter: +0.64%, +0.15%, -1.76%.

QLTA follows the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Aaa - A Capped Index, a high-quality slice of the broader Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Index. To qualify, a bond must pay a fixed rate in U.S. dollars and be taxable. It must come from an industrial, utility or financial company, have at least one year left to maturity and have $500 million or more outstanding. It also needs a rating of A3 or better. When three agencies rate a bond, the middle rating counts. With two, the lower one counts.

Bonds are weighted by market value, with no single issuer above 3%. Any excess weight is spread across the other issuers. The index updates on the last calendar day of each month. BlackRock uses "representative sampling," meaning it holds a group of bonds that matches the index's yield, credit quality and duration (how much prices move when rates change) without buying every bond. The fund may lend up to one-third of its assets to other firms. It can also put up to 10% in futures, options and swaps, though it held none as of July 31, 2026.

As of that date, the fund held 3,501 bonds, and the top 10 made up just 1.81% of assets. The largest were bonds from Broadcom, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Meta Platforms, NVIDIA, Amazon and Pfizer. About 83% came from U.S. issuers, and the average maturity was 10.7 years.

• QLTA charges 0.15% a year, versus an average of 0.07% for the similar funds below (7th of 8, cheapest first).
• Using the prospectus's standard example, $10,000 invested would cost about $15 in the first year and $192 over 10 years (assuming a 5% annual return).

It pays monthly income from high-grade corporate bonds, but its interest-rate swings are too large to make it a purely defensive holding.

QLTA could provide monthly income: its trailing 12-month yield was 4.73% as of October 27, 2026. High credit quality does not remove interest-rate risk, though. With an average maturity of 10.7 years, the fund lost 15.31% in 2022, its worst calendar year. It fell 18% between January and October 2022 and took about 36 months to recover. In the 2020 COVID crash it dropped 15.2% in under two weeks but recovered within about two months. It launched in 2012, so it has no 2008 record. Its deepest drop, 22.3% from August 2020 to October 2022, was still not fully recovered as of October 27, 2026. Anyone forced to sell in a year like 2022 would have locked in losses. In the SEC's standard example, costs come to $15 in the first year and $192 over 10 years on $10,000. Past results don't predict the future, and a plan should look at the whole portfolio, not one fund.

Matched by bond funds with the closest average maturity and issuer mix (N-PORT).