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Should You Invest in the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB)?

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The iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB - Free Report) was launched on 05/01/2006, and is a passively managed exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the Industrials - Engineering and Construction segment of the equity market.

Passively managed ETFs are becoming increasingly popular with institutional as well as retail investors due to their low cost, transparency, flexibility and tax efficiency. They are excellent vehicles for long term investors.

Additionally, sector ETFs offer convenient ways to gain low risk and diversified exposure to a broad group of companies in particular sectors. Industrials - Engineering and Construction is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 10, placing it in bottom 38%.

Index Details

The fund is sponsored by Blackrock. It has amassed assets over $1.34 billion, making it one of the larger ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Industrials - Engineering and Construction segment of the equity market. ITB seeks to match the performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Home Construction Index before fees and expenses.

The Dow Jones U.S. Select Home Builders Index is a subset of the Dow Jones U.S. Household Goods Index. It is a free-float adjusted market capitalization-weighted index. It measures the performance of the home construction sector of the U.S. equity market.

Costs

Cost is an important factor in selecting the right ETF, and cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive counterparts if all other fundamentals are the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.39%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.76%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

ETFs offer a diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Consumer Discretionary sector--about 77.90% of the portfolio. Industrials and Materials round out the top three.

Looking at individual holdings, D R Horton Inc (DHI - Free Report) accounts for about 16.48% of total assets, followed by Lennar A Corp (LEN - Free Report) and Nvr Inc (NVR - Free Report) .

The top 10 holdings account for about 63.12% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF return is roughly 13.09% so far this year and is up about 3.15% in the last one year (as of 03/06/2023). In that past 52-week period, it has traded between $49.13 and $73.21.

The ETF has a beta of 1.35 and standard deviation of 41.33% for the trailing three-year period, making it a high risk choice in the space. With about 52 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

IShares U.S. Home Construction ETF sports a Zacks ETF Rank of 4 (Sell), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. ITB, then, is not a great choice for investors seeking exposure to the Industrials ETFs segment of the market. However, there are better ETFs in the space to consider.

Invesco Dynamic Building & Construction ETF (PKB - Free Report) tracks Dynamic Building & Construction Intellidex Index and the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB - Free Report) tracks S&P Homebuilders Select Industry Index. Invesco Dynamic Building & Construction ETF has $162.50 million in assets, SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF has $956.46 million. PKB has an expense ratio of 0.57% and XHB charges 0.35%.

Bottom Line

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.

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