WHAT WE DO

Salim Ramji:

Hi, I am Salim Ramji and I am the Global Head of iShares ETFs and Index Investing here at BlackRock.

Samara Cohen:

I am Samara Cohen, the Chief Investment Officer of iShares ETF and Index Investing.

Salim Ramji:

So Samara, the convenience of ETFs and their ability to access a multitude of markets in a diversified way in amounts that people can afford is really enabling a whole new generation of investors to invest. But at its core, we need to make sure we’re keeping our promises to all 120 million people around the world who use our investments. Now, you like to say that “there’s nothing passive about how we manage our ETF and index investing business.” Why is that so important to you?

Samara Cohen:

I love that phrase, and it is because the 120 million iShares index that you talk about and the new generation of investors that are coming online make very active decisions to use our ETF and index products. And we also are very active in how we manage the portfolios.  We have teams of engineers around the world – portfolio engineers, platform engineers, markets engineers – who are committed to delivering investment performance and market quality – and there is nothing passive about that.

Salim Ramji:

So, you talked about investment performance. How do you measure that?

Samara Cohen:

Well, you give us some really good examples in the Progress Report Salim. They are how we measure investment performance – which we call tracking, and tracking is how well do we deliver the index outcome to an investor after fees, after trading costs, after everything. And for example, our S&P 500 fund tracked its index within 1/100^th of a basis point – better than any other S&P 500 fund in the United States. And the other aspect of performance is ETF market quality. For example, liquidity: how easy it is for the investor to get in and out of the ETF at the best price at a given time. 7 of the 10 most liquid bond ETFs were iShares ETFs in 2021. That’s performance and market quality!