iShares Files For Ex-Financials Corporate Bond ETF

BlackRock's

iShares unit, the world's largest ETF issuer, has filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission to possibly introduce a new corporate bond ETF that would exclude debt issued by financial services firms. The new ETF, the iShares Corporate Bond Fund, will track an index that includes U.S. dollar-denominated, investment-grade securities publicly issued by U.S. and non-U.S. issuers, that have $250 million or more of outstanding face value at the time of inclusion,

. Bonds must be rated at least Baa3 by Moody's Investors Service to be included. The filing did not contain or expense ratio. The iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond Fund

is the largest corporate bond ETF with almost $25.3 billion in assets under management, but 34.4 percent of LQD's weight is allocated to financial services firms. The ex-financials strategy has been popular with investors in other income-generating ETFs. The Market Vectors Preferred Securities ex Financials ETF

has attracted almost $83 million in AUM since debuting in July while the WisdomTree Dividend ex-Financials Fund

has almost $1.12 billion in AUM. For more on ETFs, click

.