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Should You Invest in the iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (IEO)?

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Launched on 05/01/2006, the iShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (IEO - Free Report) is a passively managed exchange traded fund designed to provide a broad exposure to the Energy - Exploration segment of the equity market.

While an excellent vehicle for long term investors, passively managed ETFs are a popular choice among institutional and retail investors due to their low costs, transparency, flexibility, and tax efficiency.

Additionally, sector ETFs offer convenient ways to gain low risk and diversified exposure to a broad group of companies in particular sectors. Energy - Exploration is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 1, placing it in top 6%.

Index Details

The fund is sponsored by Blackrock. It has amassed assets over $909.25 million, making it one of the larger ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Energy - Exploration segment of the equity market. IEO seeks to match the performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Oil Exploration & Production Index before fees and expenses.

The Dow Jones U.S. Select Oil Exploration & Production Index is a free-float adjusted market capitalization-weighted index. The Index includes companies that are engaged in the exploration for and extraction, production, refining, and supply of oil and gas products.

Costs

Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.40%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 3.10%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Energy sector--about 100% of the portfolio.

Looking at individual holdings, Conocophillips (COP - Free Report) accounts for about 19.71% of total assets, followed by Eog Resources Inc (EOG - Free Report) and Marathon Petroleum Corp (MPC - Free Report) .

The top 10 holdings account for about 70.04% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF has added about 5.02% and is down about -1.12% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 10/31/2023), respectively. IEO has traded between $78.88 and $105.94 during this last 52-week period.

The ETF has a beta of 1.60 and standard deviation of 37.35% for the trailing three-year period, making it a high risk choice in the space. With about 50 holdings, it has more concentrated exposure than peers.

Alternatives

IShares U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF holds a Zacks ETF Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Because of this, IEO is an outstanding option for investors seeking exposure to the Energy ETFs segment of the market. There are other additional ETFs in the space that investors could consider as well.

Invesco Energy Exploration & Production ETF (PXE - Free Report) tracks Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Intellidex Index and the SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (XOP - Free Report) tracks S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Select Industry Index. Invesco Energy Exploration & Production ETF has $166.16 million in assets, SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF has $3.69 billion. PXE has an expense ratio of 0.63% and XOP 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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