ETF Launches: NUHY

FEATURED ETF
Nuveen ESG High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NUHY)
The issuer expands its offering with a second fixed income ESG fund

Nuveen rolled out an ETF covering the high-yield bond space, but with an environmental, social and governance (ESG) overlay. The Nuveen ESG High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NUHY) is the first of its kind in that it is an ESG fund that covers corporate junk bonds. It has an expense ratio of 0.35%.

NUHY’s benchmark tracks a subset of the Bloomberg Barclays US High Yield Very Liquid Index, which covers high-yield bonds denominated in U.S. dollars. Companies are evaluated against their industry peers for how well they meet ESG criteria. The index excludes companies operating in controversial areas like alcohol, tobacco, gambling, weapons and nuclear power, the prospectus says.

Issues are weighted based on market value within their respective sectors, and then sorted into additional groups based on credit quality and ESG score. From there, each of those groups is given a weighting based on market value, its weight in the parent index, its credit quality in the parent index, tracking error and ESG score, according to the document.

Nuveen’s methodology is also unique in that it explicitly incorporates low carbon criteria, eliminating companies with high levels of fossil fuel ownership.

Source: ETF.com. Data and information as of 9/30/2019.
ETF Filings sidebar covers launches and closures for the month of September 2019