BlackRock ETF Taps Into American-Made Mood
BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager with approximately $4 trillion in ETF assets under management, has rolled out an exchange-traded fund aimed at tapping into the growing focus on international trade relations and manufacturing.
The iShares U.S. Manufacturing ETF (MADE) focuses on investing in companies at the “forefront of the U.S. manufacturing renaissance.”
According to an announcement from New York-based BlackRock, MADE will invest in companies that benefit from a boost in manufacturing regardless of traditional sector classifications, and will include companies directly involved in manufacturing across consumer cyclicals, technology, automotive, defense and construction categories.
MADE's debut lands in the middle of this week's Republican National Convention, where Donald Trump and party representatives have been promoting efforts to impose tariffs designed to help U.S. manufacturing.
iShares ETF to Capture American Made Theme
The ETF, which is part of the iShares thematic equity suite, is pegged to “policy efforts to increase domestic production (that) have accelerated the growth story for U.S. manufacturers,” according to BlackRock.
The announcement cited recent policies, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Chips and Science Act, which have already allocated $2.1 trillion to infrastructure projects and incentives.
Beyond existing policy efforts, BlackRock expects the “rewiring of global supply chains for resilience could bolster continued growth among U.S. manufacturers.”
According to BlackRock, since 2020, construction spending on U.S. manufacturing has increased nearly threefold to $234 billion as of May 2024, “demonstrating an accelerating effort to reestablish the U.S.’s production of goods from automobiles and chips to aerospace and defense equipment.”
In a prepared statement, Jay Jacobs, U.S. head of thematic and active ETFs at BlackRock, said MADE will be positioned to benefit from “evolving trade relations and a call for enhancing supply chain resiliency … across the public and private sectors that reestablish the U.S. as a leader in manufacturing.”
“MADE is designed to capture these long-term themes by providing targeted access to companies that could be poised to benefit from supportive policies and secular trends, enabling investors to potentially capture the renaissance in American manufacturing in the convenience of an ETF,” Jacobs added.