Products February 6, 2004

First Fixed Income ETFs to Trade Today

June 26, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Four fixed income exchange traded funds (ETFs) are scheduled to begin trading on the American Stock Exchange today, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) announced.

Reported by

Camilla Klein

According to BGI, the expense ratios for these bond funds will be 0.15%, lower than the average expense ratio of 0.39% of bond index mutual funds. The four funds are:

iShares Lehman 1-3 Year Treasury Bond Fund
iShares Lehman 7-10 Year Treasury Bond Fund
iShares Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund
iShares GS $ InvesTop Corporate Bond Fund

The regulatory comment period ended Monday and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an order permitting the operation of seven iShares bond ETFs. The remaining three funds are expected to be available at a later date, BGI said.

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ETFs, and BGI’s iShares, are index funds that are traded throughout the day as stocks are, as opposed to once per day like ordinary mutual funds.

Lee Kranefuss, CEO of BGI’s Individual Investor Business said, “Fixed income iShares will allow individual investors to see for the first time intra-day pricing of groups of bonds that have similar maturities or quality.”