The firm has been making waves in the ETF sector with a number of launches over the past few weeks.

Asset manager BlackRock has launched an exchange-traded fund, which will provide exposure to a variety of commodity markets for investors seeking portfolio diversification.

The iShares Diversified Commodity Swap UCITS ETF will deliver exposure to 20 different commodities representing five sectors including energy, agriculture, industrial metals, precious metals and livestock, the firm said in a statement.
 
According to Blackrock, the fund will seek to replicate the performance of the Bloomberg Commodity USD Total Return Index. This index aims to represent commodities that are of importance and economic significance to the world economy, while capping each sector at 33 per cent and each single commodity at 15 per cent.

The fund will use unfunded total return swaps to achieve this exposure. The fund has a total expense ratio of 0.19 per cent.

“Diversification is becoming more difficult to achieve due to increasing correlation between equities and bonds across global markets,” said Fergus Slinger, co-head of iShares sales EMEA. This fund is a direct response to growing investor appetite for asset classes that offer stronger diversification impact in portfolios, and many are looking to commodities. By capping the single commodity and sector exposure in the fund, investors are not overexposed to a particular part of the market. It can therefore serve as an alternative to purchasing individual futures or investing directly in physical commodities.”

This publication had reported a few weeks ago that BlackRock had launched a new floating-rate bond fund, as it expanded its fixed income exchange traded fund range.