ETFs that are categorized as “Multi-Asset” are sometimes ignored by the investment public and portfolio managers on both a retail and institutional level simply because Multi-Asset can be such a vague term and is likely not properly understood by most that are traditionally predisposed to equities and fixed income purely.
That said, a group of funds of rising importance in the ETF space is that of “Allocation” funds that are issued by iShares.
The iShares S&P Moderate Allocation Fund (NYSEArca: AOM) for instance is one example, and currently has an impressive $152 million in assets under management.
The fund is structured according to a proprietary managed (by S&P) target risk allocation model and seeks to track the S&P Target Risk Moderate Index.
The ETF is structured as a “Fund of Funds” ETF, in that the product owns other ETFs in some asset allocation to round out all of the holdings to 100%.
For instance, current top holdings of AOM are the following ETFs: AGG (iShares Barclays Aggregate Bond), 25.95%, IVV (iShares S&P 500 Index), 21.67%, SHV (iShares Barclays Short Treasury Bond), 19.06%, TIP (iShares Barclays TIPS Bond, 11.47%), and EFA (iShares MSCI EAFE Index), 9.24%.