PROSPECTUS

     
       
   

FRANKLIN TEMPLETON ETF TRUST

 
   

August 1, 2023

 
       
   

Slayer_DrawImageOnBackgroundColor(0,76,151)

 
       
         
           
     
 

Ticker:

Exchange:

Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

BUYZ

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin Genomic Advancements ETF

HELX

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin Intelligent Machines ETF

IQM

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin Exponential Data ETF

XDAT

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin U.S. Low Volatility ETF

FLLV

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin Investment Grade Corporate ETF

FLCO

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin Dynamic Municipal Bond ETF

FLMI

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin Municipal Green Bond ETF

FLMB

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF

FLHY

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin International Aggregate Bond ETF

FLIA

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin Senior Loan ETF

FLBL

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.

Franklin U.S. Core Bond ETF

FLCB

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin U.S. Treasury Bond ETF

FLGV

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin Ultra Short Bond ETF

FLUD

NYSE Arca, Inc.

Franklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

FLSP

NYSE Arca, Inc.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have not approved or disapproved these securities or passed upon the adequacy of this prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

ETF2 P 08/23


Contents

Fund Summaries

Information about the Fund you should know before investing
   

Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

3

Franklin Genomic Advancements ETF

13

Franklin Intelligent Machines ETF

23

Franklin Exponential Data ETF

33

Franklin U.S. Low Volatility ETF

43

Franklin Investment Grade Corporate ETF

52

Franklin Dynamic Municipal Bond ETF

62

Franklin Municipal Green Bond ETF

72

Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF

83

Franklin International Aggregate Bond ETF

94

Franklin Senior Loan ETF

106

Franklin U.S. Core Bond ETF

117

Franklin U.S. Treasury Bond ETF

127

Franklin Ultra Short Bond ETF

137

Franklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

150

Fund Details

More information on investment policies, practices and risks/financial highlights
   

Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

164

Franklin Genomic Advancements ETF

182

Franklin Intelligent Machines ETF

200

Franklin Exponential Data ETF

218

Franklin U.S. Low Volatility ETF

236

Franklin Investment Grade Corporate ETF

249

Franklin Dynamic Municipal Bond ETF

273

Franklin Municipal Green Bond ETF

291

Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF

310

Franklin International Aggregate Bond ETF

334

Franklin Senior Loan ETF

365

Franklin U.S. Core Bond ETF

392

Franklin U.S. Treasury Bond ETF

410

Franklin Ultra Short Bond ETF

428

Franklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

453

Distributions and Taxes

479


Shareholder Information

Information about Fund transactions
   

Buying and Selling Shares

486

Book Entry

487

Share Prices

488

Calculating NAV

488

Creations and Redemptions

492

Premium/Discount Information

494

Delivery of Shareholder Documents - Householding

494

Distribution

494

For More Information

Where to learn more about the Fund

Back Cover


FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

BUYZ

  Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

Investment Goal

Capital appreciation.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.50%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.50%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

 

$51

 

$160

 

$279

 

$629

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 47.01% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies that are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of disruptive commerce. The Fund invests predominantly in common stock.

Companies relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of disruptive commerce are those that the investment manager believes are substantially focused on and/or are expected to substantially benefit from electronic commerce (or “e-commerce”), auctions, the sharing economy, electronic payment capabilities ("e-payments"), drop shipping, direct marketing or significant decreases in transport and delivery costs, all of which provide the customer with a more customized, secure and time efficient buying process. These companies may include retailers, payment companies, logistics and delivery companies, software companies that focus on multi-channel capabilities, as well as companies utilizing innovative marketing methods. Developments relevant to the disruptive commerce theme can extend from benefits to the consumer to benefits for businesses and business commerce.

In pursuing the Fund’s investment theme, the investment manager may invest in companies in any economic sector or of any market capitalization and may invest in companies both inside and outside of the United States, including those in developing or emerging markets. Although the Fund may invest across economic sectors, the Fund concentrates its investments in consumer discretionary related industries. The Fund is a “non-diversified” fund, which means it generally invests a greater proportion of its assets in the securities of one or more issuers and invests overall in a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.

In selecting companies that the investment manager believes are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of disruptive commerce, the investment manager seeks to identify, using its own fundamental, “bottom-up” research and analysis, companies positioned to capitalize on disruptive innovation in or that are enabling the further development of the disruptive commerce theme in the markets in which they operate. The investment manager’s internal research and analysis leverages insights from diverse sources, including external research, to develop and refine its investment theme and identify and take advantage of trends that have ramifications for individual companies or entire industries. The investment manager also evaluates market segments, products, services and business models positioned to benefit significantly from disruptive innovations in commerce relative to broad securities markets, and seeks to identify the primary beneficiaries of new trends or developments in commerce to select investments for the Fund.

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

The investment manager may seek to sell a security if: (i) the security reaches its valuation target; (ii) the security reaches its position size limit in the Fund’s portfolio; (iii) the security’s fundamentals deteriorate; (iv) there are adverse policy changes that could affect the security’s outlook; or (v) better investment opportunities become available.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Thematic Investing The Fund’s investment strategies incorporate the identification of thematic investment opportunities and its performance may be negatively impacted if the investment manager does not correctly identify such opportunities or if the theme develops in an unexpected manner. Performance may also be negatively impacted if the securities selected for the Fund’s portfolios do not benefit from the development of the Fund’s investment theme. Securities selected pursuant to the Fund’s investment theme may be impacted by factors unrelated to the theme, particularly with respect to companies that may have multiple lines of business, and may underperform. Adverse developments and risks unrelated to the Fund’s investment theme affecting companies in which the Fund invests may negatively impact the Fund’s performance.

The Fund’s thematic investments will also subject the Fund to growth style investing risks. Growth stock prices reflect projections of future earnings or revenues, and can, therefore, fall dramatically if the company fails to meet those projections. Growth stocks may be more expensive relative to their current earnings or assets compared to value or other stocks, and if earnings growth expectations moderate, their valuations may return to more typical norms, causing their stock prices to fall. Prices of these companies’ securities may be more volatile than other securities, particularly over the short term.

Concentration By focusing its investments in consumer discretionary related industries, the Fund carries much greater risks of adverse developments and price movements in such industries than a fund that invests in a wider variety of industries. Because the Fund concentrates in a specific industry or group of industries, there is also the risk that the Fund will perform poorly during a slump in demand for securities of companies in such industries.

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Companies operating within consumer discretionary related industries could be affected by, among other things, overall economic conditions, interest rates and disposable income. These companies typically face intense competition and are subject to fluctuating consumer confidence and consumer demand. Many of these companies compete aggressively on price, potentially affecting their long run profitability. Companies within consumer discretionary related industries may have extensive online operations. The online nature of these companies and their involvement in processing, storing and transmitting large amounts of data make these companies particularly vulnerable to cyber security risk. This includes threats to operational software and hardware, as well as theft of personal and transaction records and other customer data. In the event of a cyberattack, these companies could suffer serious adverse reputational and operational consequences, including liability and litigation.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

Stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of debt securities. A slower-growth or recessionary economic environment could have an adverse effect on the prices of the various stocks held by the Fund.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Small and Mid-Capitalization Companies  Securities issued by small and mid-capitalization companies may be more volatile in price than those of larger companies, involve substantial risks and should be considered speculative. Such risks may include greater sensitivity to economic conditions, less certain growth prospects, and lack of depth of management and funds for growth and

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

development. They may also have limited product lines or be developing or marketing new products or services for which markets are not yet established and may never become established. In addition, small and mid-capitalization companies may be particularly affected by interest rate increases, as they may find it more difficult to borrow money to continue or expand operations, or may have difficulty in repaying any loans.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets, trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv) limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid (harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries.

Developing Market Countries The Fund’s investments in securities of issuers in developing market countries are subject to all of the risks of foreign investing generally, and have additional heightened risks due to a lack of established legal, political, business and social frameworks to support securities markets, including: delays in settling portfolio securities transactions; currency and capital controls; greater sensitivity to interest rate changes; pervasiveness of corruption and crime; currency exchange rate volatility; and inflation, deflation or currency devaluation.

Geographic Focus Because the Fund may invest a significant portion of its assets in companies in a specific country and region, including China, the Fund is subject to greater risks of adverse developments in that country, region and/or the surrounding regions than a fund that is more broadly diversified geographically. Political, social or economic disruptions in the country or region, even in countries in which the Fund is not invested, may adversely affect the value of investments held by the Fund.

There are special risks associated with investments in China, including exposure to currency fluctuations, less liquidity, expropriation, confiscatory taxation, nationalization and exchange control regulations (including currency blockage). Inflation and rapid fluctuations in inflation and interest rates have had, and may continue to have, negative effects on the economy and securities markets of China.

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

China is deemed by the investment manager to be an emerging markets country, which means an investment in this country has more heightened risks than general foreign investing due to a lack of established legal, political, business and social frameworks and accounting standards or auditor oversight in the country to support securities markets as well as the possibility for more widespread corruption and fraud. In addition, the standards for environmental, social and corporate governance matters in China also tend to be lower than such standards in more developed economies. Also, certain securities issued by companies located or operating in China, such as China A-Shares, are subject to trading restrictions, quota limitations, and clearing and settlement risks. In addition, there may be significant obstacles to obtaining information necessary for investigations into or litigation against companies located in or operating in China and shareholders may have limited legal remedies.

Trade disputes and the imposition of tariffs on goods and services can affect the Chinese economy, particularly in light of China's large export sector, as well as the global economy. Trade disputes can result in increased costs of production and reduced profitability for non-export-dependent companies that rely on imports to the extent China engages in retaliatory tariffs. Trade disputes may also lead to increased currency exchange rate volatility.

Non-Diversification Because the Fund is non-diversified, it may be more sensitive to economic, business, political or other changes affecting individual issuers or investments than a diversified fund, which may negatively impact the Fund's performance and result in greater fluctuation in the value of the Fund’s shares.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of

     

8

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FUND SUMMARIES

securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

To the extent that the underlying securities held by the Fund trade on an exchange that is closed when the securities exchange on which the Fund shares list and trade is open, there may be market uncertainty about the stale security pricing (i.e., the last quote from its closed foreign market) resulting in premiums or discounts to NAV that may be greater than those experienced by other ETFs.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Small Fund When the Fund's size is small, the Fund may experience low trading volume and wide bid-ask spreads. In addition, the Fund may face the risk of being delisted if the Fund does not meet certain conditions of the listing exchange.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2021:-19.45,2022:-49.65)

     

Best Quarter:

2021, Q2

9.29%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q2

-32.22%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 26.05%.

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

             

 

 

1 Year

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Disruptive Commerce ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-49.65%

 

-6.05%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-49.65%

 

-6.15%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-29.39%

 

-4.54%

1

Russell 3000® Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-19.21%

 

8.53%

1

             

1.

Since inception February 25, 2020.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Manager

Matthew J. Moberg, CPA
Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2020).

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities(and an amount of cash) that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask

     

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FRANKLIN DISRUPTIVE COMMERCE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN GENOMIC ADVANCEMENTS ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

HELX

  Franklin Genomic Advancements ETF 

Investment Goal

Capital appreciation.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.50%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.50%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Genomic Advancements ETF

 

$51

 

$160

 

$279

 

$629

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating

     

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FRANKLIN GENOMIC ADVANCEMENTS ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 32.63% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies that are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of genomic advancements. The Fund invests predominantly in common stock.

Companies relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of genomic advancements are those that the investment manager believes are substantially focused on and/or are expected to substantially benefit from extending and enhancing the quality of human and other life (e.g., animals) by incorporating technological and scientific developments, improvements and advancements in the field of genomics into their business, such as by offering new products or services that rely on genetic engineering, gene therapy, genome analysis, DNA sequencing, synthesis or instrumentation. These companies may include those that research, develop, produce, manufacture or significantly rely on or enable bionic devices, bio-inspired computing, bioinformatics, molecular medicine and diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and agricultural applications of genomics, and related equipment, techniques and processes.

In pursuing the Fund’s investment theme, the investment manager may invest in companies in any economic sector or of any market capitalization and may invest in companies both inside and outside of the United States, including those in developing or emerging markets. Although the Fund may invest across economic sectors, the Fund concentrates its investments in health care related industries. The Fund is a “non-diversified” fund, which means it generally invests a greater proportion of its assets in the securities of one or more issuers and invests overall in a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.

In selecting companies that the investment manager believes are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of genomic advancements, the investment manager seeks to identify, using its own fundamental, “bottom-up” research and analysis, companies positioned to capitalize on disruptive innovation in or that are enabling the further development of the genomic advancements theme in the markets in which they operate. The investment manager’s internal research and analysis leverages insights from diverse sources, including external research, to develop and refine its investment theme and identify and take advantage of trends that have ramifications for individual companies or entire industries. The investment manager also evaluates market segments, products, services and business models positioned to benefit significantly from advancements in genomics relative to broad securities markets, and seeks to identify the primary beneficiaries of new trends or developments in genomics to select investments for the Fund.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

The investment manager may seek to sell a security if: (i) the security reaches its valuation target; (ii) the security reaches its position size limit in the Fund’s portfolio; (iii) the security’s fundamentals deteriorate; (iv) there are adverse policy changes that could affect the security’s outlook; or (v) better investment opportunities become available.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Thematic Investing The Fund’s investment strategies incorporate the identification of thematic investment opportunities and its performance may be negatively impacted if the investment manager does not correctly identify such opportunities or if the theme develops in an unexpected manner. Performance may also be negatively impacted if the securities selected for the Fund’s portfolios do not benefit from the development of the Fund’s investment theme. Securities selected pursuant to the Fund’s investment theme may be impacted by factors unrelated to the theme, particularly with respect to companies that may have multiple lines of business, and may underperform. Adverse developments and risks unrelated to the Fund’s investment theme affecting companies in which the Fund invests may negatively impact the Fund’s performance.

The Fund’s thematic investments will also subject the Fund to growth style investing risks. Growth stock prices reflect projections of future earnings or revenues, and can, therefore, fall dramatically if the company fails to meet those projections. Growth stocks may be more expensive relative to their current earnings or assets compared to value or other stocks, and if earnings growth expectations moderate, their valuations may return to more typical norms, causing their stock prices to fall. Prices of these companies’ securities may be more volatile than other securities, particularly over the short term.

Concentration By focusing its investments in health care related industries, the Fund carries much greater risks of adverse developments and price movements in such industries than a fund that invests in a wider variety of industries. Because the Fund concentrates in a specific industry or group of industries, there is also the risk that the Fund will perform poorly during a slump in demand for securities of companies in such industries.

     

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Companies operating within health care related industries face intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence. These companies are also heavily dependent on intellectual property rights and may be adversely affected by loss or impairment of those rights. There can be no assurance these companies will be able to successfully protect their intellectual property to prevent the misappropriation of their technology, or that competitors will not develop technology that is substantially similar or superior to such companies’ technology. Companies in the life sciences tools and services industry work to develop technologies and instruments to facilitate scientific and medical research; therefore, this industry, in particular, may be negatively affected by a company’s failure to develop new or improved products that integrate technological advances. These companies typically engage in significant amounts of spending on research and development, and there is no guarantee that the products or services produced by these companies will be successful. In addition, the field of genomic science could face increasing regulatory scrutiny in the future, which may limit the development of this technology and impede the growth of companies that develop and/or utilize this technology. The customers and/or suppliers of these companies may be concentrated in a particular country, region or industry. Any adverse event affecting one of these countries, regions or industries could have a negative impact on such companies. The activities of companies operating within health care related industries may also be funded or subsidized by federal and state governments. If government funding and subsidies are reduced or discontinued, the profitability of these companies could be adversely affected. These companies may also be affected by government policies, regulatory approval for new drugs and medical products, and similar matters. They are also subject to legislative risk, i.e., the risks associated with the reform of the health care system through legislation.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

     

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Stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of debt securities. A slower-growth or recessionary economic environment could have an adverse effect on the prices of the various stocks held by the Fund.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Small and Mid-Capitalization Companies  Securities issued by small and mid-capitalization companies may be more volatile in price than those of larger companies, involve substantial risks and should be considered speculative. Such risks may include greater sensitivity to economic conditions, less certain growth prospects, and lack of depth of management and funds for growth and development. They may also have limited product lines or be developing or marketing new products or services for which markets are not yet established and may never become established. In addition, small and mid-capitalization companies may be particularly affected by interest rate increases, as they may find it more difficult to borrow money to continue or expand operations, or may have difficulty in repaying any loans.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets, trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv) limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid (harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries.

Non-Diversification Because the Fund is non-diversified, it may be more sensitive to economic, business, political or other changes affecting individual issuers or investments than a diversified fund, which may negatively impact the Fund's performance and result in greater fluctuation in the value of the Fund’s shares.

     

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Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

To the extent that the underlying securities held by the Fund trade on an exchange that is closed when the securities exchange on which the Fund shares list and trade is open, there may be market uncertainty about the stale security pricing (i.e.,

     

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the last quote from its closed foreign market) resulting in premiums or discounts to NAV that may be greater than those experienced by other ETFs.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Small Fund When the Fund's size is small, the Fund may experience low trading volume and wide bid-ask spreads. In addition, the Fund may face the risk of being delisted if the Fund does not meet certain conditions of the listing exchange.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance.. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

     

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Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2021:9.66,2022:-37.86)

     

Best Quarter:

2021, Q2

19.63%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q1

-23.66%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 0.27%.

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

             

 

 

1 Year

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Genomic Advancements ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-37.86%

 

6.90%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-37.86%

 

6.84%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-22.41%

 

5.32%

1

Russell 3000® Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-19.21%

 

8.53%

1

             

1.

Since inception February 25, 2020.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

     

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Portfolio Manager

Matthew J. Moberg, CPA
Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2020).

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (and an amount of cash) that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a

     

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conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN INTELLIGENT MACHINES ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

IQM 

  Franklin Intelligent Machines ETF 

Investment Goal

Capital appreciation.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.50%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.50%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Intelligent Machines ETF

 

$51

 

$160

 

$279

 

$629

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating

     

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expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 19.82% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies that are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of intelligent machines. The Fund invests predominantly in common stock.

Companies relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of intelligent machines are those that the investment manager believes are substantially focused on and/or are expected to substantially benefit from the ongoing technology-driven transformation of products, software, systems and machinery as well as product design, manufacture, logistics, distribution and maintenance, including through developments in artificial intelligence. These companies may include those that develop, produce, manufacture, design, maintain and deliver products or services with new capabilities previously unavailable in the marketplace.

The Fund's investment theme of intelligent machines is intended to capture companies that the investment manager believes represent the next phase of technological evolution, including companies that provide new systems, logistics solutions, methods, processes, products or services based on physical applications of new technologies and technological innovation. Such companies include those the investment manager believes are well-positioned to benefit from intelligent design (e.g., simulation software and computer-aided design or "CAD" software), intelligent production (e.g., advancements in manufacturing or factory automation capabilities), intelligent products (e.g., robotic-assisted technologies, tools and services) and intelligent predictive maintenance (e.g., industrial software solutions and services).

In pursuing the Fund’s investment theme, the investment manager may invest in companies in any economic sector or of any market capitalization and may invest in companies both inside and outside of the United States, including those in developing or emerging markets. Although the Fund may invest across economic sectors, it expects to have significant positions in particular sectors including technology. The Fund is a “non-diversified” fund, which means it generally invests a greater proportion of its assets in the securities of one or more issuers and invests overall in a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.

In selecting companies that the investment manager believes are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of intelligent machines, the investment manager seeks to identify, using its own fundamental, “bottom-up” research and analysis, companies positioned to capitalize on disruptive innovation in or that are enabling the further development of the intelligent machines theme in the markets in which they

     

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operate. The investment manager’s internal research and analysis leverages insights from diverse sources, including external research, to develop and refine its investment theme and identify and take advantage of trends that have ramifications for individual companies or entire industries. The investment manager also evaluates market segments, products, services and business models positioned to benefit significantly from disruptive innovations in intelligent products, design, manufacturing and/or predictive maintenance relative to broad securities markets, and seeks to identify the primary beneficiaries of new trends or developments in physical applications of these innovations to select investments for the Fund.

The investment manager may seek to sell a security if: (i) the security reaches its valuation target; (ii) the security reaches its position size limit in the Fund’s portfolio; (iii) the security’s fundamentals deteriorate; (iv) there are adverse policy changes that could affect the security’s outlook; or (v) better investment opportunities become available.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Thematic Investing The Fund’s investment strategies incorporate the identification of thematic investment opportunities and its performance may be negatively impacted if the investment manager does not correctly identify such opportunities or if the theme develops in an unexpected manner. Performance may also be negatively impacted if the securities selected for the Fund’s portfolios do not benefit from the development of the Fund’s investment theme. Securities selected pursuant to the Fund’s investment theme may be impacted by factors unrelated to the theme, particularly with respect to companies that may have multiple lines of business, and may underperform. Adverse developments and risks unrelated to the Fund’s investment theme affecting companies in which the Fund invests may negatively impact the Fund’s performance.

The Fund’s thematic investments will also subject the Fund to growth style investing risks. Growth stock prices reflect projections of future earnings or revenues, and can, therefore, fall dramatically if the company fails to meet those projections. Growth stocks may be more expensive relative to their current earnings or assets compared to value or other stocks, and if earnings growth expectations moderate, their valuations may return to more typical norms, causing their stock

     

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prices to fall. Prices of these companies’ securities may be more volatile than other securities, particularly over the short term.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

Stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of debt securities. A slower-growth or recessionary economic environment could have an adverse effect on the prices of the various stocks held by the Fund.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Technology companies. Companies operating within the technology sector may be affected by worldwide technological developments, the success of their products and services (which may be outdated quickly), anticipated products or services that are delayed or cancelled, and investor perception of the company and/or its products or services. These companies typically face intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence. They may also have limited product lines, markets, financial resources or personnel. Technology companies are also heavily dependent on intellectual property rights and may be adversely affected by loss or impairment of those rights. There can be no assurance these companies will be able to successfully protect their intellectual property to prevent the misappropriation of their technology, or that competitors will not develop technology that is substantially similar or superior to such companies’ technology. These companies typically engage in significant amounts of spending on research and development, and there is no guarantee that the products or services produced by these companies will be successful. Technology companies are also potential targets for cyberattacks, which can have a materially adverse impact on the

     

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performance of these companies. In addition, companies operating within the technology sector may develop and/or utilize artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence technology could face increasing regulatory scrutiny in the future, which may limit the development of this technology and impede the growth of companies that develop and/or utilize this technology. Similarly, the collection of data from consumers and other sources could face increased scrutiny as regulators consider how the data is collected, stored, safeguarded and used. The customers and/or suppliers of technology companies may be concentrated in a particular country, region or industry. Any adverse event affecting one of these countries, regions or industries could have a negative impact on these companies.

Small and Mid-Capitalization Companies  Securities issued by small and mid-capitalization companies may be more volatile in price than those of larger companies, involve substantial risks and should be considered speculative. Such risks may include greater sensitivity to economic conditions, less certain growth prospects, and lack of depth of management and funds for growth and development. They may also have limited product lines or be developing or marketing new products or services for which markets are not yet established and may never become established. In addition, small and mid-capitalization companies may be particularly affected by interest rate increases, as they may find it more difficult to borrow money to continue or expand operations, or may have difficulty in repaying any loans.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets, trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv) limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid (harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries.

Developing Market Countries The Fund’s investments in securities of issuers in developing market countries are subject to all of the risks of foreign investing generally, and have additional heightened risks due to a lack of established legal, political, business and social frameworks to support securities markets, including:

     

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delays in settling portfolio securities transactions; currency and capital controls; greater sensitivity to interest rate changes; pervasiveness of corruption and crime; currency exchange rate volatility; and inflation, deflation or currency devaluation.

Non-Diversification Because the Fund is non-diversified, it may be more sensitive to economic, business, political or other changes affecting individual issuers or investments than a diversified fund, which may negatively impact the Fund's performance and result in greater fluctuation in the value of the Fund’s shares.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than

     

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NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

To the extent that the underlying securities held by the Fund trade on an exchange that is closed when the securities exchange on which the Fund shares list and trade is open, there may be market uncertainty about the stale security pricing (i.e., the last quote from its closed foreign market) resulting in premiums or discounts to NAV that may be greater than those experienced by other ETFs.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Small Fund When the Fund's size is small, the Fund may experience low trading volume and wide bid-ask spreads. In addition, the Fund may face the risk of being delisted if the Fund does not meet certain conditions of the listing exchange.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years,

     

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10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance.. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2021:25.25,2022:-33.14)

     

Best Quarter:

2021, Q4

12.04%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q2

-25.77%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 34.91%.

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

             

 

 

1 Year

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Intelligent Machines ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-33.14%

 

13.99%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-33.14%

 

13.97%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-19.62%

 

10.96%

1

Russell 3000® Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-19.21%

 

8.53%

1

             

1.

Since inception February 25, 2020.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund

     

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FRANKLIN INTELLIGENT MACHINES ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Manager

Matthew J. Moberg, CPA
Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2020).

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (and an amount of cash) that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

     

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FRANKLIN INTELLIGENT MACHINES ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

XDAT

  Franklin Exponential Data ETF

Investment Goal

Capital appreciation.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.50%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.50%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Exponential Data ETF

 

$51

 

$160

 

$279

 

$629

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 20.94% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies that are relevant to the Fund's investment theme of exponential data. The Fund invests predominantly in common stock.

Companies relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of exponential data are those that the investment manager believes are substantially focused on and/or are expected to substantially benefit from the use of large data sets and/or the growth of data, including systems, services, hardware, software and other digital and physical infrastructure related to data creation, amplification, collection, cleaning, recording, analysis, processing, transmission, delivery, storage, encryption and security. These companies may include companies benefitting from or facilitating the application or development of cloud computing technologies and services, data supporting infrastructure and data analytics solutions, including companies providing hardware and software technologies supporting data applications as well as those utilizing data analysis systems to provide or improve goods and services (e.g., software-as-a-service and personalized advertising and health care services). These companies may also include companies the investment manager believes represent new and innovative use cases for data, such as those benefitting from or facilitating artificial intelligence, machine learning, and augmented and virtual reality.

The Fund also may invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs).

In pursuing the Fund’s investment theme, the investment manager may invest in companies in any economic sector or of any market capitalization and may invest in companies both inside and outside of the United States, including those in developing or emerging markets. Although the Fund may invest across economic sectors, the Fund concentrates its investments in information technology related industries. The Fund is a “non-diversified” fund, which means it generally invests a greater proportion of its assets in the securities of one or more issuers and invests overall in a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.

In selecting companies that the investment manager believes are relevant to the Fund’s investment theme of exponential data, the investment manager seeks to identify, using its own fundamental, “bottom-up” research and analysis, companies positioned to capitalize on innovations in or that are enabling the further development of the exponential data theme in the markets in which they operate. The investment manager’s internal research and analysis leverages insights from diverse sources, including external research, to develop and refine its investment

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

theme and identify and take advantage of trends that have ramifications for individual companies or entire industries. In analyzing investment opportunities for the Fund, the investment manager also evaluates market segments, products, services and business models positioned to benefit significantly from innovations in data products or services or the commercialization of data relative to the broad equities market, and seeks to identify the primary beneficiaries of new trends or developments in exponential data to select investments for the Fund. The Fund’s thematic investment process is designed to construct a portfolio of companies the investment manager believes are substantially focused on and/or are expected to substantially benefit from the exponential data theme based on a determination that exposure to the theme is driving or, in the investment manager’s opinion, will in the future drive an issuer’s growth or competitive positioning, including companies that either currently monetize data or have the potential in the future to monetize data.

The investment manager may seek to sell a security if: (i) the security reaches its valuation target; (ii) the security reaches its position size limit in the Fund’s portfolio; (iii) the security’s fundamentals deteriorate; (iv) there are adverse policy changes that could affect the security’s outlook; or (v) better investment opportunities become available.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Thematic Investing The Fund’s investment strategies incorporate the identification of thematic investment opportunities and its performance may be negatively impacted if the investment manager does not correctly identify such opportunities or if the theme develops in an unexpected manner. Performance may also be negatively impacted if the securities selected for the Fund’s portfolios do not benefit from the development of the Fund’s investment theme. Securities selected pursuant to the Fund’s investment theme may be impacted by factors unrelated to the theme, particularly with respect to companies that may have multiple lines of business, and may underperform. Adverse developments and risks unrelated to the Fund’s investment theme affecting companies in which the Fund invests may negatively impact the Fund’s performance.

The Fund’s thematic investments will also subject the Fund to growth style investing risks. Growth stock prices reflect projections of future earnings or revenues, and can, therefore, fall dramatically if the company fails to meet those

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

projections. Growth stocks may be more expensive relative to their current earnings or assets compared to value or other stocks, and if earnings growth expectations moderate, their valuations may return to more typical norms, causing their stock prices to fall. Prices of these companies’ securities may be more volatile than other securities, particularly over the short term.

Concentration By focusing its investments in information technology related industries, the Fund carries much greater risks of adverse developments and price movements in such industries than a fund that invests in a wider variety of industries. Because the Fund concentrates in a specific industry or group of industries, there is also the risk that the Fund will perform poorly during a slump in demand for securities of companies in such industries.

Companies operating within information technology related industries may be affected by worldwide technological developments, the success of their products and services (which may be outdated quickly), anticipated products or services that are delayed or cancelled, and investor perception of the company and/or its products or services. These companies typically face intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence. They may also have limited product lines, markets, financial resources or personnel. Technology companies are also heavily dependent on intellectual property rights and may be adversely affected by loss or impairment of those rights. There can be no assurance these companies will be able to successfully protect their intellectual property to prevent the misappropriation of their technology, or that competitors will not develop technology that is substantially similar or superior to such companies’ technology. These companies typically engage in significant amounts of spending on research and development, and there is no guarantee that the products or services produced by these companies will be successful. Technology companies are also potential targets for cyberattacks, which can have a materially adverse impact on the performance of these companies. Companies in the software industry may be adversely affected by, among other things, the decline or fluctuation of subscription renewal rates for their products and services and actual or perceived vulnerabilities in their products or services. In addition, companies operating within the technology sector may develop and/or utilize artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence technology could face increasing regulatory scrutiny in the future, which may limit the development of this technology and impede the growth of companies that develop and/or utilize this technology. Similarly, the collection of data from consumers and other sources could face increased scrutiny as regulators consider how the data is collected, stored, safeguarded and used. The customers and/or suppliers of technology companies may be concentrated in a particular country, region or industry. Any adverse event affecting one of these countries, regions or industries could have a negative impact on these companies.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

Stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of debt securities. A slower-growth or recessionary economic environment could have an adverse effect on the prices of the various stocks held by the Fund.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Small and Mid-Capitalization Companies  Securities issued by small and mid-capitalization companies may be more volatile in price than those of larger companies, involve substantial risks and should be considered speculative. Such risks may include greater sensitivity to economic conditions, less certain growth prospects, and lack of depth of management and funds for growth and development. They may also have limited product lines or be developing or marketing new products or services for which markets are not yet established and may never become established. In addition, small and mid-capitalization companies may be particularly affected by interest rate increases, as they may find it more difficult to borrow money to continue or expand operations, or may have difficulty in repaying any loans.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets,

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv) limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid (harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries.

Developing Market Countries The Fund’s investments in securities of issuers in developing market countries are subject to all of the risks of foreign investing generally, and have additional heightened risks due to a lack of established legal, political, business and social frameworks to support securities markets, including: delays in settling portfolio securities transactions; currency and capital controls; greater sensitivity to interest rate changes; pervasiveness of corruption and crime; currency exchange rate volatility; and inflation, deflation or currency devaluation.

Non-Diversification Because the Fund is non-diversified, it may be more sensitive to economic, business, political or other changes affecting individual issuers or investments than a diversified fund, which may negatively impact the Fund's performance and result in greater fluctuation in the value of the Fund’s shares.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) A REIT’s performance depends on the types, values and locations of the properties it owns and how well those properties are managed. A decline in rental income may occur because of extended vacancies, increased competition from other properties, tenants’ failure to pay rent or poor management. Because a REIT may be invested in a limited number of projects or in a particular market segment, it may be more susceptible to adverse developments affecting a single project or market segment than more broadly diversified investments. Loss of status as a qualified REIT under the U.S. federal tax laws could adversely affect the value of a particular REIT or the market for REITs as a whole. These risks may also apply to securities of REIT-like entities domiciled outside the U.S.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

To the extent that the underlying securities held by the Fund trade on an exchange that is closed when the securities exchange on which the Fund shares list and trade is open, there may be market uncertainty about the stale security pricing (i.e., the last quote from its closed foreign market) resulting in premiums or discounts to NAV that may be greater than those experienced by other ETFs.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Small Fund When the Fund's size is small, the Fund may experience low trading volume and wide bid-ask spreads. In addition, the Fund may face the risk of being delisted if the Fund does not meet certain conditions of the listing exchange.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of an investment in the Fund by comparing the Fund’s performance with a broad measure of market performance. The bar chart shows the Fund’s performance for the most recent calendar year. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2022:-45.66)

     

Best Quarter:

2022, Q3

-3.66%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q2

-28.05%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 26.87%.

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

             

 

 

1 Year

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Exponential Data ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-45.66%

 

-22.97%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-45.66%

 

-22.97%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-27.03%

 

-16.95%

1

Russell 3000® Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-19.21%

 

-0.25%

1

             

1.

Since inception January 12, 2021.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Manager

Matthew J. Moberg, CPA
Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2021).

     

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FRANKLIN EXPONENTIAL DATA ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (and an amount of cash) that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN U.S. LOW VOLATILITY ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

FLLV

  Franklin U.S. Low Volatility ETF

Investment Goal

Capital appreciation with an emphasis on lower volatility.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.29%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.29%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin U.S. Low Volatility ETF

 

$30

 

$94

 

$164

 

$369

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating

     

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FRANKLIN U.S. LOW VOLATILITY ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 32.13% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in U.S. investments. The Fund invests primarily in equity securities (principally common stocks) of U.S. companies, which are those that:

· are organized under the laws of, or have a principal office in, or for whose securities the principal trading market is, the U.S.; or

· derive 50% or more of their total revenue or profit from either goods or services produced, or sales made, in the U.S.; or

· have 50% or more of their assets in the U.S.

The Fund seeks capital appreciation while providing a lower level of volatility than the broader equity market as measured by the Russell 1000® Index. “Volatility” is a statistical measurement of the frequency and level of up and down fluctuations of a fund’s returns over time. Therefore, in this context, seeking to provide a lower level of volatility than the broader equity market means that the Fund seeks returns that fluctuate less than the returns of the Russell 1000® Index.

The investment manager seeks to accomplish its investment goal through its security selection process. The investment manager applies a fundamentally driven, “bottom-up” research process to create a starting universe of eligible securities across a large number of sectors; the starting universe is derived from the holdings of a number of actively managed Franklin Templeton equity funds. The investment manager screens that universe on a quarterly basis in order to identify those securities with the lowest realized volatility relative to their corresponding sectors, while also incorporating fundamental views of individual stocks. The Fund’s sector weightings generally are based on the current sector weightings within the Russell 1000® Index. Individual securities in the Fund’s portfolio are generally weighted equally within each sector. The investment manager may, from time to time, make adjustments to the Fund’s portfolio as a result of corporate actions, changes to the volatility profile of the Fund’s holdings, or for risk management related purposes. The investment manager may utilize proprietary quantitative screening techniques to identify investment opportunities as part of the portfolio construction process for the Fund. Quantitative analyses rely on mathematical computations to identify investment opportunities. The investment manager may consider selling a security when it believes the security has become fully valued due to either its price appreciation or changes in the issuer’s fundamentals, or when the investment manager believes another security is a more attractive investment opportunity.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

The Fund may invest a portion of its assets in mid-capitalization companies. The Fund may also invest in American Depository Receipts.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

Stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of debt securities. A slower-growth or recessionary economic environment could have an adverse effect on the prices of the various stocks held by the Fund.

Volatility Strategy There can be no guarantee that the Fund’s volatility strategy will be successful; moreover, achieving the Fund’s volatility strategy does not mean the Fund will achieve a positive or competitive return. Although the Fund is designed to have less volatility than the broader equity market as measured by the Russell 1000® Index, the actual volatility that the Fund experiences could be higher than the volatility of the broader equity market and/or the Russell 1000® Index. The volatility strategy can be expected to limit the Fund’s participation in market price appreciation when compared to similar funds that do not attempt this strategy. In cases of extreme market conditions during which there is price dislocation for certain securities or in the event of systemic market dislocation, the Fund’s volatility strategy may cause the Fund to be significantly over- or under-exposed to a

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

specific security, which may cause the Fund to lose significantly more than it would have lost had the volatility strategy not been used.

Mid Capitalization Companies Securities issued by mid capitalization companies may be more volatile in price than those of larger companies, involve substantial risks and should be considered speculative. Such risks may include greater sensitivity to economic conditions, less certain growth prospects, lack of depth of management and funds for growth and development, and limited or less developed product lines and markets. In addition, mid capitalization companies may be particularly affected by interest rate increases, as they may find it more difficult to borrow money to continue or expand operations, or may have difficulty in repaying any loans.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Technology companies Companies in the technology sector have historically been volatile due to the rapid pace of product change and development within the sector. For example, their products and services may not prove commercially successful or may become obsolete quickly. In addition, delays in or cancellation of the release of anticipated products or services may also affect the price of a technology company’s stock. Technology companies are subject to significant competitive pressures, such as new market entrants, aggressive pricing and tight profit margins. The activities of these companies may also be adversely affected by changes in government regulations, worldwide technological developments or investor perception of a company and/or its products or services. The stock prices of companies operating within this sector may be subject to abrupt or erratic movements.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming

     

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shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Quantitative Screening Techniques The quantitative screening techniques used by the investment manager as part of the Fund's portfolio construction process to identify investment opportunities may not operate as desired or produce the intended results. Quantitative analyses rely on mathematical computations which may be derived from inputs that are incomplete or inaccurate, including with respect to internal or third-party data. Accordingly, the effectiveness of quantitative screens or investment parameters may be limited due to technical issues in the design, development, implementation, or maintenance of the underlying models, programming or coding errors, and technology failures, which could adversely affect the Fund's ability to achieve its investment goal. Successful operation of quantitative models and other investment tools is also reliant upon the information technology systems of the investment manager and its ability to ensure those systems remain operational and that appropriate disaster recovery procedures are in place. There can be no assurance that the investment manager will be successful in maintaining effective and operational technology systems, including related hardware and software systems.

Depositary Receipts Depositary receipts are subject to many of the risks of the underlying securities. For some depositary receipts, the custodian or similar financial institution that holds the issuer's shares in a trust account is located in the issuer's home country. In these cases if the issuer’s home country does not have developed financial markets, the Fund could be exposed to the credit risk of the custodian or financial institution and greater market risk. In addition, the depository institution may not have physical custody of the underlying securities at all times and may charge fees for various services. The Fund may experience delays in receiving its dividend and interest payments or exercising rights as a shareholder.

     

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There may be an increased possibility of untimely responses to certain corporate actions of the issuer in an unsponsored depositary receipt program. Accordingly, there may be less information available regarding issuers of securities underlying unsponsored programs and there may not be a correlation between this information and the market value of the depositary receipts.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

 

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to

     

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year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2017:19.83,2018:-0.41,2019:32.05,2020:12.45,2021:23.3,2022:-8.48)

     

Best Quarter:

2020, Q2

17.41%

Worst Quarter:

2020, Q1

-18.84%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 6.38%.

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

                 

 

 

1 Year

 

5 Years

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin U.S. Low Volatility ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-8.48%

 

10.79%

 

12.16%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-8.85%

 

10.24%

 

11.57%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-4.77%

 

8.42%

 

9.62%

1

Russell 1000® Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-19.13%

 

9.13%

 

11.53%

1

                 

1.

Since inception September 20, 2016.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from

     

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those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Manager

Todd Brighton, CFA
Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2016).

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (and an amount of cash) that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

     

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Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN INVESTMENT GRADE CORPORATE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

FLCO

  Franklin Investment Grade Corporate ETF

Investment Goal

A high level of current income as is consistent with prudent investing, while seeking preservation of capital.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.35%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.35%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Investment Grade Corporate ETF

 

$36

 

$112

 

$196

 

$443

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate

     

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higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 27.84% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in investment grade corporate debt securities and investments. Investment grade debt securities are securities that are rated at the time of purchase in the top four ratings categories by one or more independent rating organizations such as S&P Global Ratings (S&P®) (rated BBB- or better) or Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) (rated Baa3 or higher) or, if unrated, are determined to be of comparable quality by the Fund’s investment manager. Corporate issuers may include corporate or other business entities in which a sovereign or governmental agency or entity may have, indirectly or directly, an interest, including a majority or greater ownership interest. The Fund invests primarily in U.S. dollar denominated corporate debt securities issued by U.S. and foreign companies. The Fund may invest in debt securities of any maturity or duration. The Fund’s focus on the credit quality of its portfolio is intended to reduce credit risk and help to preserve the Fund’s capital.

The Fund may also invest a portion of its assets in convertible securities, preferred securities (including preferred stock) and U.S. Treasury securities, and generally expects to invest a portion of its assets in cash, cash equivalents and high quality money market securities, including short-term U.S. government securities, commercial paper, repurchase agreements and affiliated or unaffiliated money market funds.

The Fund may invest up to 40% of its net assets in foreign securities, including those in developing markets, and up to 15% of its net assets in non-U.S. dollar denominated securities.

The Fund may enter into certain derivative transactions, principally currency forwards; interest rate and U.S. Treasury futures contracts; and swap agreements, including interest rate, fixed income total return, currency and credit default swaps (including credit default index swaps). The use of these derivative transactions may allow the Fund to obtain net long or short exposures to select currencies, interest rates, countries, durations or credit risks. These derivatives may be used to enhance Fund returns, increase liquidity, gain exposure to certain instruments or markets in a more efficient or less expensive way and/or hedge risks associated with its other portfolio investments. Derivatives that provide exposure to investment grade corporate debt securities may be used to satisfy the Fund’s 80% policy.

     

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The Fund may invest up to 15% of its net assets in collateralized debt obligations (“CDOs”), including collateralized loan obligations (“CLOs”).

In choosing investments, the Fund’s investment manager selects securities in various market sectors based on the investment manager’s assessment of changing economic, market, industry and issuer conditions. The investment manager uses a “top-down” analysis of macroeconomic trends, combined with a “bottom-up” fundamental analysis of market sectors, industries and issuers, to try to take advantage of varying sector reactions to economic events. The Fund’s portfolio is constructed by taking into account the investment manager’s desired duration and yield curve exposure, total return potential, as well as the appropriate diversification and risk profile at the issue, company and industry level. The investment manager may utilize quantitative models to identify investment opportunities as part of the portfolio construction process for the Fund. Quantitative models are proprietary systems that rely on mathematical computations to identify investment opportunities.

The investment manager may seek to sell a security if: (i) the security has moved beyond the investment manager’s fair value target and there has been no meaningful positive change in the company’s fundamental outlook; (ii) there has been a negative fundamental change in the issuer’s credit outlook that changes the investment manager’s view of the appropriate valuation; or (iii) the investment manager’s views on macroeconomic or sector trends or valuations have changed, making that particular issuer (or that issuer’s industry) less attractive for the Fund’s portfolio. In addition, the investment manager may sell a security that still meets the investment manager’s buy criteria if another security becomes available in the new issue or secondary market that the investment manager believes has better return potential or improves the Fund’s risk profile.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Credit An issuer of debt securities may fail to make interest payments or repay principal when due, in whole or in part. Changes in an issuer's financial strength or in a security's or government's credit rating may affect a security's value.

Interest Rate When interest rates rise, debt security prices generally fall. The opposite is also generally true: debt security prices rise when interest rates fall.

     

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Interest rate changes are influenced by a number of factors, including government policy, monetary policy, inflation expectations, perceptions of risk, and supply of and demand for bonds. In general, securities with longer maturities or durations are more sensitive to interest rate changes.

 

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

Income The Fund's distributions to shareholders may decline when prevailing interest rates fall, when the Fund experiences defaults on debt securities it holds or when the Fund realizes a loss upon the sale of a debt security.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets, trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv) limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid (harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries. To the extent that the Fund invests a significant portion of its assets in a specific geographic region, the Fund will generally have more exposure to the economic risks affecting that specific geographic region.

     

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Extension Some debt securities are subject to the risk that the debt security’s effective maturity is extended because calls or prepayments are less or slower than anticipated, particularly when interest rates rise. The market value of such security may then decline and become more interest rate sensitive.

Derivative Instruments The performance of derivative instruments depends largely on the performance of an underlying instrument, such as a currency, security, interest rate or index, and such instruments often have risks similar to their underlying instrument, in addition to other risks. Derivative instruments involve costs and can create economic leverage in the Fund's portfolio which may result in significant volatility and cause the Fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the Fund's initial investment. Other risks include illiquidity, mispricing or improper valuation of the derivative instrument, and imperfect correlation between the value of the derivative and the underlying instrument so that the Fund may not realize the intended benefits. When a derivative is used for hedging, the change in value of the derivative may also not correlate specifically with the currency, security, interest rate or other risk being hedged. With over-the-counter derivatives, there is the risk that the other party to the transaction will fail to perform.

Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) The risks of an investment in a CDO, a type of asset backed security, and which includes CLOs, depend largely on the type of collateral held by the special purpose entity (SPE) and the tranche of the CDO in which the Fund invests and may be affected by the performance of a CDO's collateral manager. CDOs may be deemed to be illiquid and subject to the Fund’s restrictions on investments in illiquid investments. In addition to the normal risks associated with debt securities and asset backed securities (e.g., interest rate risk, credit risk and default risk), CDOs carry additional risks including, but not limited to: (i) the possibility that distributions from collateral securities will not be adequate to make interest or other payments; (ii) the quality of the collateral may decline in value or quality or go into default or be downgraded; (iii) the Fund may invest in tranches of a CDO that are subordinate to other classes; and (iv) the complex structure of the security may not be fully understood at the time of investment.

Convertible Securities Convertible securities are subject to the risks of stocks when the underlying stock price is high relative to the conversion price (because more of the security's value resides in the conversion feature) and debt securities when the underlying stock price is low relative to the conversion price (because the conversion feature is less valuable). A convertible security is not as sensitive to interest rate changes as a similar non-convertible debt security, and generally has less potential for gain or loss than the underlying stock.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and

     

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risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Quantitative Models The quantitative models that may be used by the investment manager as part of the Fund’s portfolio construction process to identify investment opportunities have been tested on historical price data. These models are based on the assumption that price movements in most markets display very similar patterns. There is the risk that market behavior will change and that the patterns upon which the forecasts in the models are based will weaken or disappear, which would reduce the ability of the models to generate an excess return. Further, as market dynamics shift over time, a previously highly successful model may become outdated, perhaps without the investment manager recognizing that fact before substantial losses are incurred. Successful operation of a model is also reliant upon the information technology systems of the investment manager and its ability to ensure those systems remain operational and that appropriate disaster recovery procedures are in place. There can be no assurance that the investment manager will be successful in maintaining effective and operational quantitative models and the related hardware and software systems.

     

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Cash/Cash Equivalents To the extent the Fund holds cash or cash equivalents rather than securities in which it primarily invests or uses to manage risk, the Fund may not achieve its investment objectives and may underperform.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

To the extent that the underlying securities held by the Fund trade on an exchange that is closed when the securities exchange on which the Fund shares list and trade is open, there may be market uncertainty about the stale security pricing (i.e., the last quote from its closed foreign market) resulting in premiums or discounts to NAV that may be greater than those experienced by other ETFs.

Currency Management Strategies Currency management strategies may substantially change the Fund’s exposure to currency exchange rates and could result in losses to the Fund if currencies do not perform as the Investment Manager or a Sub-Advisor expects. In addition, currency management strategies, to the extent that they reduce the Fund’s exposure to currency risks, also reduce the Fund’s ability to benefit from favorable changes in currency exchange rates. Using currency management strategies for purposes other than hedging further increases the Fund’s exposure to foreign investment losses. Currency markets generally are not as regulated as securities markets. In addition, currency rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time, and can reduce returns.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment

     

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manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2017:6.12,2018:-3.07,2019:14.8,2020:9.94,2021:-1.82,2022:-16.17)

     

Best Quarter:

2020, Q2

10.30%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q2

-7.83%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 2.99%.

     

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FRANKLIN INVESTMENT GRADE CORPORATE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

                 

 

 

1 Year

 

5 Years

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Investment Grade Corporate ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-16.17%

 

0.14%

 

0.58%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-17.39%

 

-1.28%

 

-0.84%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-9.53%

 

-0.42%

 

-0.11%

1

Bloomberg US Corporate - Investment Grade Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-15.76%

 

0.45%

 

0.91%

1

                 

1.

Since inception October 3, 2016.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Sub-Advisor

Franklin Templeton Institutional, LLC (FT Institutional). For purposes of the Fund’s investment strategies, techniques and risks, the term “investment manager” includes the sub-advisor.

Portfolio Managers

Marc Kremer, CFA
Portfolio Manager of FT Institutional and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2016).

Shawn Lyons, CFA
Portfolio Manager of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2016).

Thomas Runkel, CFA
Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2019.

Pururav Thoutireddy, Ph.D.
Portfolio Manager of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2019.

Josh Lohmeier, CFA
Portfolio Manager of FT Institutional and portfolio manager of the Fund since March 2023.

     

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Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (which may include cash in lieu of certain securities) and/or an amount of cash that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN DYNAMIC MUNICIPAL BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

FLMI

  Franklin Dynamic Municipal Bond ETF

Investment Goal

A high level of current income that is exempt from federal income taxes.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees1

 

0.30%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses1

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses1

 

0.30%

1. Management fees and expenses for the Fund have been restated to reflect the Fund’s unified management fee and current expenses effective December 1, 2022.

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Dynamic Municipal Bond ETF

 

$31

 

$97

 

$169

 

$380

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 64.13% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in municipal securities whose interest is free from federal income taxes, including the federal alternative minimum tax. Although the Fund tries to invest all of its assets in tax-free securities, it is possible that up to 20% of the Fund’s net assets may be in securities that pay interest that may be subject to the federal alternative minimum tax and, although not anticipated, in securities that pay interest subject to other federal or state income taxes.

Although the Fund does not have restrictions on the maturity of the securities it may buy, the Fund seeks to maintain a dollar-weighted average portfolio maturity of three to 10 years. The Fund may invest in municipal securities that are issued on a when-issued or delayed delivery basis.

The Fund may invest in municipal securities rated in any rating category by U.S. nationally recognized rating services (or unrated or short-term rated securities of comparable quality), including below investment grade (also known as "junk bonds") and defaulted securities.

The Fund also may invest in insured municipal securities, municipal lease obligations, variable and floating rate securities (primarily variable rate demand notes), zero coupon securities and deferred interest securities.

Although the investment manager will search for investments across a large number of municipal securities that finance different types of projects, from time to time, based on economic conditions, the Fund may have significant positions in municipal securities that finance similar types of projects.

The Fund may invest in municipal securities that are covered by insurance policies that guarantee the timely payment of principal and interest.

The investment manager selects securities that it believes will provide the best balance between risk and return within the Fund's range of allowable investments and typically invests with a long-term time horizon. This means it generally holds securities in the Fund's portfolio for income purposes, although the investment manager may sell a security at any time if it believes it could help the Fund meet its goal. With a focus on income, individual securities are considered for purchase or sale based on various factors and considerations, including credit profile, risk, structure, pricing, portfolio impact, duration management, restructuring, opportunistic trading and tax loss harvesting opportunities.

     

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FRANKLIN DYNAMIC MUNICIPAL BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Interest Rate When interest rates rise, debt security prices generally fall. The opposite is also generally true: debt security prices rise when interest rates fall. Interest rate changes are influenced by a number of factors, including government policy, monetary policy, inflation expectations, perceptions of risk, and supply of and demand for bonds. In general, securities with longer maturities or durations are more sensitive to interest rate changes.

Variable rate securities generally will not increase in market value if interest rates decline. Conversely, the market value may not decline when prevailing interest rates rise. Fixed rate debt securities generally are more sensitive to interest rate changes than variable rate securities.

Credit An issuer of debt securities may fail to make interest payments or repay principal when due, in whole or in part. Changes in an issuer's financial strength or in a security's or government's credit rating may affect a security's value. A change in the credit rating of a municipal bond insurer that insures securities in the Fund’s portfolio may affect the value of the securities it insures, the Fund’s share price and Fund performance. The Fund might also be adversely impacted by the inability of an insurer to meet its insurance obligations.

Liquidity The trading market for a particular security or type of security or other investments in which the Fund invests may become less liquid or even illiquid. Reduced liquidity will have an adverse impact on the Fund’s ability to sell such securities or other investments when necessary to meet the Fund’s liquidity needs, which may arise or increase in response to a specific economic event or because the investment manager wishes to purchase particular investments or believes that a higher level of liquidity would be advantageous. Reduced liquidity will also generally lower the value of such securities or other investments. Market prices for such securities or other investments may be relatively volatile.

Tax Legislative and Political Changes The municipal securities market could be significantly affected by adverse political and legislative changes or litigation at the federal or state level. The value of municipal bonds is closely tied to the benefits of tax-exempt income to investors. Significant revisions of federal income tax laws or regulations revising income tax rates or the tax-exempt character of municipal bonds, or even proposed changes and deliberations on this topic by the federal

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

government, could cause municipal bond prices to fall. For example, lower federal income tax rates would reduce certain relative advantages of owning municipal bonds, and lower state income tax rates could have similar effects. In addition, the application of corporate minimum tax rates to financial statement income may have the effect of reducing demand for municipal bonds among corporate investors, which may in turn impact municipal bond prices.

Tax-Exempt Securities Failure of a municipal security issuer to comply with applicable tax requirements may make income paid thereon taxable, resulting in a decline in the security’s value. In addition, there could be changes in applicable tax laws or tax treatments that reduce or eliminate the current federal income tax exemption on municipal securities or otherwise adversely affect the current federal or state tax status of municipal securities.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

High-Yield Debt Securities Issuers of lower-rated or “high-yield” debt securities (also known as “junk bonds”) are not as strong financially as those issuing higher credit quality debt securities. High-yield debt securities are generally considered predominantly speculative by the applicable rating agencies as their issuers are more likely to encounter financial difficulties because they may be more highly leveraged, or because of other considerations. In addition, high yield debt securities generally are more vulnerable to changes in the relevant economy, such as a recession or a sustained period of rising interest rates, that could affect their ability to make interest and principal payments when due. The prices of high-yield debt securities generally fluctuate more than those of higher credit quality. High-yield debt securities are generally more illiquid (harder to sell) and harder to value.

 

States The Fund’s portfolio is generally widely diversified among issuers of municipal securities. However, to the extent that the Fund has exposure from time to time to the municipal securities of a particular state, events in that state may

     

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FRANKLIN DYNAMIC MUNICIPAL BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

affect the Fund’s investments and performance. These events may include economic or political policy changes, tax base erosion, unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities, constitutional limits on tax increases, budget deficits and other financial difficulties, and changes in the credit ratings assigned to municipal issuers of the state.

Municipal Project Focus  The Fund may invest more than 25% of its assets in municipal securities that finance similar types of projects, such as utilities, hospitals, higher education and transportation. A change that affects one project, such as proposed legislation on the financing of the project, a shortage of the materials needed for the project, or a declining need for the project, would likely affect all similar projects, thereby increasing market risk.

Income The Fund's distributions to shareholders may decline when prevailing interest rates fall, when the Fund experiences defaults on debt securities it holds or when the Fund realizes a loss upon the sale of a debt security.

Prepayment Prepayment risk occurs when a debt security can be repaid in whole or in part prior to the security's maturity and the Fund must reinvest the proceeds it receives, during periods of declining interest rates, in securities that pay a lower rate of interest. Also, if a security has been purchased at a premium, the value of the premium would be lost in the event of prepayment. Prepayments generally increase when interest rates fall.

Zero Coupon and Deferred Interest Securities These bonds tend to react more sharply to changes in interest rates than traditional bonds. The discount on these securities typically increases as interest rates rise, the market becomes less liquid or the creditworthiness of the issuer deteriorates. Because investors receive no cash prior to the maturity or cash payment date, an investment in debt securities issued at a discount generally has a greater potential for complete loss of principal and/or return than an investment in debt securities that make periodic interest payments.

Bond Insurers Because of the consolidation among municipal bond insurers the Fund is subject to additional risks including the risk that credit risk may be concentrated among fewer insurers and the risk that events involving one or more municipal bond insurers could have a significant adverse effect on the value of the securities insured by an insurer and on the municipal markets as a whole.

Unrated Debt Securities  Unrated debt securities determined by the investment manager to be of comparable quality to rated securities which the Fund may purchase may pay a higher interest rate than such rated debt securities and be subject to a greater risk of illiquidity or price changes. Less public information is typically available about unrated securities or issuers.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

Municipal Lease Obligations Municipal lease obligations differ from other municipal securities because the relevant legislative body must appropriate the money each year to make the lease payments. If the money is not appropriated, the lease may be cancelled without penalty and investors who own the lease obligations may not be paid.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary

     

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FRANKLIN DYNAMIC MUNICIPAL BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

Small Fund When the Fund's size is small, the Fund may experience low trading volume and wide bid-ask spreads. In addition, the Fund may face the risk of being delisted if the Fund does not meet certain conditions of the listing exchange.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Cash Transactions To the extent that the Fund effects redemptions partly or entirely for cash, rather than for in-kind securities, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the Fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in Fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind.

 

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

measure of market performance. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2018:0.39,2019:6.8,2020:6.25,2021:4,2022:-10.22)

     

Best Quarter:

2022, Q4

3.63%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q1

-6.98%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 3.63%.

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

                 

 

 

1 Year

 

5 Years

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Dynamic Municipal Bond ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-10.22%

 

1.24%

 

1.15%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-10.22%

 

1.24%

 

1.15%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-4.94%

 

1.56%

 

1.47%

1

Bloomberg Municipal 1-15 Year Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-5.95%

 

1.44%

 

1.29%

1

                 

1.

Since inception August 31, 2017.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund

     

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FRANKLIN DYNAMIC MUNICIPAL BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Managers

Ben Barber, CFA

Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

Daniel Workman, CFA

Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2017).

Francisco Rivera

Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

James Conn, CFA

Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2017).

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (which may include cash in lieu of certain securities) and/or an amount of cash that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

Taxes

The Fund's distributions are primarily exempt from regular federal income tax. A portion of these distributions, however, may be subject to federal alternative minimum tax and state and local taxes. The Fund may also make distributions that are taxable to you as ordinary income or capital gains.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN MUNICIPAL GREEN BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

FLMB

  Franklin Municipal Green Bond ETF

Investment Goal

To maximize income exempt from federal income taxes to the extent consistent with prudent investing and the preservation of shareholders’ capital.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees1

 

0.30%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses1

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses1

 

0.30%

1. Management fees and expenses for the Fund have been restated to reflect the Fund’s unified management fee and current expenses effective December 1, 2022.

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin Municipal Green Bond ETF

 

$31

 

$97

 

$169

 

$380

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 66.77% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in municipal securities whose interest is free from federal income taxes, including the federal alternative minimum tax. Although the Fund tries to invest all of its assets in tax-free securities, it is possible that up to 20% of the Fund’s net assets may be invested in securities that pay interest that may be subject to the federal alternative minimum tax and, although not anticipated, in securities that pay interest subject to other federal or state income taxes.

In addition, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in municipal green bonds. Municipal “green bonds” are bonds that promote environmental sustainability. The proceeds of green bonds are typically used for one or more of the following purposes: renewable energy, energy efficiency, pollution prevention and control, environmentally sustainable management of living natural resources and land use, terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity conservation, clean transportation, sustainable water and wastewater management, climate change adaptation, eco-efficient and/or circular economy adapted products, production technologies and processes or green buildings that meet regional, national or internationally recognized standards or certifications.

A municipal bond issuer can choose to assign a “green bond” or similar label to its bonds in its offering documents: however, there is no regulation of green bonds as a class and no universal framework for issuing green bonds. In order to determine a green bond’s authenticity, the investment manager completes due diligence on each bond to be purchased to determine whether it meets the “green bond” definition above. After reviewing offering documents and issuer websites, and, if necessary, conferring with the underwriter and issuer, the investment manager places prospective green bonds into one of the following three categories:

· Eligible for investment based exclusively on an internal evaluation of the bond. The investment manager determines that bond proceeds are being issued for environmentally-friendly projects or programs and that the issuer has adequate internal controls and disclosure practices.

· Eligible for investment based on an internal evaluation of the bond as well as an external evaluation by an independent party. The due diligence process is identical, but the investment manager also leverages an independent

     

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FRANKLIN MUNICIPAL GREEN BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

evaluation that some issuers engage to verify that the green bond label has been used appropriately to make its determination of authenticity.

· Not eligible for investment. The investment manager places bonds in this category if bond proceeds are not clearly used to promote environmental sustainability, project descriptions are inadequate, or disclosure practices and internal controls are weak.

The investment manager screens all labeled green bonds and bonds with similar labels, but it also will consider bonds with no label for investment by the Fund. The due diligence process and categorization of non-labeled green bonds and labeled green bonds is identical.

The Fund may invest in securities of any maturity or duration. In addition, the Fund may invest in municipal securities issued by U.S. Territories. The Fund does not necessarily focus its investments in a particular state or territory.

The Fund buys predominately municipal securities rated, at the time of purchase, in one of the top four ratings categories by one or more U.S. nationally recognized rating services (or comparable unrated or short-term rated securities). The Fund may hold up to 20% of its net assets in municipal securities rated below investment grade (or comparable unrated or short-term rated securities).

The Fund also may invest in insured municipal securities, municipal lease obligations, variable and floating rate securities (primarily variable rate demand notes), zero coupon securities and deferred interest securities.

Although the investment manager searches for investments across a large number of municipal securities that finance different types of projects, from time to time, based on economic conditions, the Fund may have significant positions in municipal securities that finance similar types of projects.

The investment manager selects securities that it believes will provide the best balance between risk and return within the Fund's range of allowable investments and typically invests with a long-term time horizon. This means it generally holds securities in the Fund's portfolio for income purposes, although the investment manager may sell a security at any time if it believes it could help the Fund meet its goal. With a focus on income, individual securities are considered for purchase or sale based on various factors and considerations, including credit profile, risk, structure, pricing, portfolio impact, duration management, restructuring, opportunistic trading and tax loss harvesting opportunities.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Interest Rate When interest rates rise, debt security prices generally fall. The opposite is also generally true: debt security prices rise when interest rates fall. Interest rate changes are influenced by a number of factors, including government policy, monetary policy, inflation expectations, perceptions of risk, and supply of and demand for bonds. In general, securities with longer maturities or durations are more sensitive to interest rate changes.

Variable rate securities generally will not increase in market value if interest rates decline. Conversely, the market value may not decline when prevailing interest rates rise. Fixed rate debt securities generally are more sensitive to interest rate changes than variable rate securities.

 

Credit An issuer of debt securities may fail to make interest payments or repay principal when due, in whole or in part. Changes in an issuer's financial strength or in a security's or government's credit rating may affect a security's value. A change in the credit rating of a municipal bond insurer that insures securities in the Fund’s portfolio may affect the value of the securities it insures, the Fund’s share price and Fund performance. The Fund might also be adversely impacted by the inability of an insurer to meet its insurance obligations.

Liquidity The trading market for a particular security or type of security or other investments in which the Fund invests may become less liquid or even illiquid. Reduced liquidity will have an adverse impact on the Fund’s ability to sell such securities or other investments when necessary to meet the Fund’s liquidity needs, which may arise or increase in response to a specific economic event or because the investment manager wishes to purchase particular investments or believes that a higher level of liquidity would be advantageous. Reduced liquidity will also generally lower the value of such securities or other investments. Market prices for such securities or other investments may be relatively volatile.

Tax Legislative and Political Changes The municipal securities market could be significantly affected by adverse political and legislative changes or litigation at the federal or state level. The value of municipal bonds is closely tied to the benefits of tax-exempt income to investors. Significant revisions of federal income tax laws or regulations revising income tax rates or the tax-exempt character of municipal bonds, or even proposed changes and deliberations on this topic by the federal government, could cause municipal bond prices to fall. For example, lower federal income tax rates would reduce certain relative advantages of owning municipal bonds, and lower state income tax rates could have similar effects. In addition, the application of corporate minimum tax rates to financial statement income may have

     

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FRANKLIN MUNICIPAL GREEN BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

the effect of reducing demand for municipal bonds among corporate investors, which may in turn impact municipal bond prices.

Tax-Exempt Securities Failure of a municipal security issuer to comply with applicable tax requirements may make income paid thereon taxable, resulting in a decline in the security’s value. In addition, there could be changes in applicable tax laws or tax treatments that reduce or eliminate the current federal income tax exemption on municipal securities or otherwise adversely affect the current federal or state tax status of municipal securities.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

States and U.S. Territories The Fund’s portfolio is generally widely diversified among issuers of municipal securities. However, to the extent that the Fund has exposure from time to time to the municipal securities of a particular state, events in that state may affect the Fund’s investments and performance. These events may include economic or political policy changes, tax base erosion, unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities, constitutional limits on tax increases, budget deficits and other financial difficulties, and changes in the credit ratings assigned to municipal issuers of the state. The same is true of events in U.S. territories, to the extent that the Fund has exposure to any particular territory at a given time.

Green Bonds The Fund invests in issuers financing projects that are intended or expected to have a positive environmental impact. Certain sectors may be more likely to issue green bonds, and events or factors impacting these sectors may have a greater effect on the Fund than they would on a fund that does not invest in issuers with a common purpose. The Fund’s focus on green bonds may limit the investment opportunities available to the Fund. The Fund is subject to the risk that the Fund’s focus on green bonds may, at times, cause the Fund to underperform strategies that do not include similar considerations or investment criteria.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

Municipal Project Focus  The Fund may invest more than 25% of its assets in municipal securities that finance similar types of projects, such as utilities, hospitals, higher education and transportation. A change that affects one project, such as proposed legislation on the financing of the project, a shortage of the materials needed for the project, or a declining need for the project, would likely affect all similar projects, thereby increasing market risk.

Income The Fund's distributions to shareholders may decline when prevailing interest rates fall, when the Fund experiences defaults on debt securities it holds or when the Fund realizes a loss upon the sale of a debt security.

Prepayment Prepayment risk occurs when a debt security can be repaid in whole or in part prior to the security's maturity and the Fund must reinvest the proceeds it receives, during periods of declining interest rates, in securities that pay a lower rate of interest. Also, if a security has been purchased at a premium, the value of the premium would be lost in the event of prepayment. Prepayments generally increase when interest rates fall.

 

High-Yield Debt Securities Issuers of lower-rated or “high-yield” debt securities (also known as “junk bonds”) are not as strong financially as those issuing higher credit quality debt securities. High-yield debt securities are generally considered predominantly speculative by the applicable rating agencies as their issuers are more likely to encounter financial difficulties because they may be more highly leveraged, or because of other considerations. In addition, high yield debt securities generally are more vulnerable to changes in the relevant economy, such as a recession or a sustained period of rising interest rates, that could affect their ability to make interest and principal payments when due. The prices of high-yield debt securities generally fluctuate more than those of higher credit quality. High-yield debt securities are generally more illiquid (harder to sell) and harder to value.

Municipal Lease Obligations Municipal lease obligations differ from other municipal securities because the relevant legislative body must appropriate the money each year to make the lease payments. If the money is not appropriated, the lease may be cancelled without penalty and investors who own the lease obligations may not be paid.

Zero Coupon and Deferred Interest Securities These bonds tend to react more sharply to changes in interest rates than traditional bonds. The discount on these securities typically increases as interest rates rise, the market becomes less liquid or the creditworthiness of the issuer deteriorates. Because investors receive no cash prior to the maturity or cash payment date, an investment in debt securities issued at a discount generally has a greater potential for complete loss of principal and/or return than an investment in debt securities that make periodic interest payments.

     

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FRANKLIN MUNICIPAL GREEN BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Bond Insurers Because of the consolidation among municipal bond insurers the Fund is subject to additional risks including the risk that credit risk may be concentrated among fewer insurers and the risk that events involving one or more municipal bond insurers could have a significant adverse effect on the value of the securities insured by an insurer and on the municipal markets as a whole.

Unrated Debt Securities  Unrated debt securities determined by the investment manager to be of comparable quality to rated securities which the Fund may purchase may pay a higher interest rate than such rated debt securities and be subject to a greater risk of illiquidity or price changes. Less public information is typically available about unrated securities or issuers.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Cash Transactions To the extent that the Fund effects redemptions partly or entirely for cash, rather than for in-kind securities, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the Fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in Fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind.

Small Fund When the Fund's size is small, the Fund may experience low trading volume and wide bid-ask spreads. In addition, the Fund may face the risk of being delisted if the Fund does not meet certain conditions of the listing exchange.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

     

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FRANKLIN MUNICIPAL GREEN BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. On May 3, 2022, the Fund changed its principal investment strategies to reflect the Fund's focus on investing principally in municipal bonds that promote environmental sustainability and the performance for periods prior to that date is attributable to the Fund's performance before the strategy change. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future. You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2018:0.21,2019:8.96,2020:7.46,2021:0.89,2022:-12.2)

     

Best Quarter:

2022, Q4

4.64%

Worst Quarter:

2022, Q1

-7.57%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 3.86%.

     

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FRANKLIN MUNICIPAL GREEN BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

                 

 

 

1 Year

 

5 Years

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin Municipal Green Bond ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-12.20%

 

0.78%

 

0.90%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-12.20%

 

0.78%

 

0.90%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-6.23%

 

1.17%

 

1.25%

1

Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-8.53%

 

1.25%

 

1.22%

1

                 

1.

Since inception August 31, 2017.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Managers

Ben Barber, CFA

Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

Daniel Workman, CFA

Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

Francisco Rivera

Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

James Conn, CFA

Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2017).

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

exchange for a basket of securities (which may include cash in lieu of certain securities) and/or an amount of cash that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

Taxes

The Fund's distributions are primarily exempt from regular federal income tax. A portion of these distributions, however, may be subject to federal alternative minimum tax and state and local taxes. The Fund may also make distributions that are taxable to you as ordinary income or capital gains.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN HIGH YIELD CORPORATE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

FLHY

  Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF

Investment Goals

To earn a high level of current income. Its secondary goal is to seek capital appreciation to the extent it is possible and consistent with the Fund’s principal goal.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.40%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.40%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF

 

$41

 

$129

 

$225

 

$506

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate

     

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FRANKLIN HIGH YIELD CORPORATE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 17.13% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in high yield corporate debt securities and investments that provide exposure to high yield corporate debt securities. High yield debt securities are those that are rated below investment grade, also known as “junk bonds.” High yield debt securities are rated at the time of purchase below the top four ratings categories by at least one independent rating agency such as S&P Global Ratings (S&P®) (rated BB+ and lower) and Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) (rated Ba1 and lower) or, if unrated, are determined to be of comparable quality by the Fund’s investment manager. Corporate issuers may include corporate or other business entities in which a sovereign or governmental agency or entity may have, indirectly or directly, an interest, including a majority or greater ownership interest.

Lower-rated securities generally pay higher yields than more highly rated securities to compensate investors for the higher risk. These securities include bonds; notes; debentures; convertible securities; bank loans and corporate loans; and senior and subordinated debt securities.

The Fund may invest up to 100% of its total assets in high yield debt securities. The Fund may buy both rated and unrated debt securities, including securities rated below B by Moody’s or S&P® (or deemed comparable by the Fund’s investment manager). The Fund may invest in fixed or floating rate corporate loans and corporate debt securities, including covenant lite loans. The Fund may also invest in defaulted debt securities. The Fund may invest in debt securities of any maturity or duration.

The Fund may invest in debt securities of U.S. and foreign issuers, including those in developing or emerging markets. These securities may be U.S. dollar or non-U.S. dollar denominated.

The Fund may purchase or receive equity securities, including in connection with restructurings.

The Fund may enter into certain derivative transactions, principally currency and cross currency forwards; and swap agreements, including interest rate and credit default swaps (including credit default index swaps). The use of these derivative transactions may allow the Fund to obtain net long or short exposures to select currencies, interest rates, countries, durations or credit risks. These derivatives may be used to enhance Fund returns, increase liquidity, gain exposure to certain

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

instruments or markets in a more efficient or less expensive way and/or hedge risks associated with its other portfolio investments. When used for hedging purposes, a forward contract could be used to protect against possible decline in a currency’s value when a security held or to be purchased by the Fund is denominated in that currency. Derivatives that provide exposure to high yield corporate debt securities may be used to satisfy the Fund’s 80% policy.

The Fund’s investment manager is a research driven, fundamental investor that relies on a team of analysts to provide in-depth industry expertise and uses both qualitative and quantitative analysis to evaluate issuers. As a “bottom-up” investor, the investment manager focuses primarily on individual securities. The investment manager also considers sectors when choosing investments. The investment manager may utilize quantitative models to identify investment opportunities as part of the portfolio construction process for the Fund. Quantitative models are proprietary systems that rely on mathematical computations to identify investment opportunities.

In selecting securities for the Fund’s investment portfolio, the investment manager does not rely principally on the ratings assigned by rating agencies, but performs its own independent investment analysis to evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer. The investment manager considers a variety of factors, including the issuer’s experience and managerial strength, its sensitivity to economic conditions, and its current and prospective financial condition.

The investment manager may seek to sell a security if: (i) the security has moved beyond the investment manager’s fair value target and there has been no meaningful positive change in the company’s fundamental outlook; (ii) there has been a negative fundamental change in the issuer’s credit outlook that changes the investment manager’s view of the appropriate valuation; or (iii) the investment manager’s views on macroeconomic or sector trends or valuations have changed, making that particular issuer (or that issuer’s industry) less attractive for the Fund’s portfolio. In addition, the investment manager may sell a security that still meets the investment manager’s buy criteria if another security becomes available in the new issue or secondary market that the investment manager believes has better return potential or improves the Fund’s risk profile.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goals. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

Credit An issuer of debt securities may fail to make interest payments or repay principal when due, in whole or in part. Changes in an issuer's financial strength or in a security's or government's credit rating may affect a security's value.

High-Yield Debt Securities Issuers of lower-rated or “high-yield” debt securities (also known as “junk bonds”) are not as strong financially as those issuing higher credit quality debt securities. High-yield debt securities are generally considered predominantly speculative by the applicable rating agencies as their issuers are more likely to encounter financial difficulties because they may be more highly leveraged, or because of other considerations. In addition, high yield debt securities generally are more vulnerable to changes in the relevant economy, such as a recession or a sustained period of rising interest rates, that could affect their ability to make interest and principal payments when due. The prices of high-yield debt securities generally fluctuate more than those of higher credit quality. High-yield debt securities are generally more illiquid (harder to sell) and harder to value.

Interest Rate When interest rates rise, debt security prices generally fall. The opposite is also generally true: debt security prices rise when interest rates fall. Interest rate changes are influenced by a number of factors, including government policy, monetary policy, inflation expectations, perceptions of risk, and supply of and demand for bonds. In general, securities with longer maturities or durations are more sensitive to interest rate changes.

Income The Fund's distributions to shareholders may decline when prevailing interest rates fall, when the Fund experiences defaults on debt securities it holds or when the Fund realizes a loss upon the sale of a debt security.

Liquidity  The trading market for a particular security or type of security or other investments in which the Fund invests may become less liquid or even illiquid. Reduced liquidity will have an adverse impact on the Fund’s ability to sell such securities or other investments when necessary to meet the Fund’s liquidity needs or in response to a specific economic event and will also generally lower the value of a security or other investments. Market prices for such securities or other investments may be volatile.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets, trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv)

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid (harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries.

Currency Management Strategies Currency management strategies may substantially change the Fund’s exposure to currency exchange rates and could result in losses to the Fund if currencies do not perform as the investment manager expects. In addition, currency management strategies, to the extent that they reduce the Fund’s exposure to currency risks, also reduce the Fund’s ability to benefit from favorable changes in currency exchange rates. Using currency management strategies for purposes other than hedging further increases the Fund’s exposure to foreign investment losses. Currency markets generally are not as regulated as securities markets. In addition, currency rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time, and can reduce returns.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Prepayment Prepayment risk occurs when a debt security can be repaid in whole or in part prior to the security's maturity and the Fund must reinvest the proceeds it receives, during periods of declining interest rates, in securities that pay a lower rate of interest. Also, if a security has been purchased at a premium, the value of the premium would be lost in the event of prepayment. Prepayments generally increase when interest rates fall.

Derivative Instruments The performance of derivative instruments depends largely on the performance of an underlying instrument, such as a currency, security, interest rate or index, and such instruments often have risks similar to their underlying instrument, in addition to other risks. Derivative instruments involve costs and can create economic leverage in the Fund's portfolio which may result in significant volatility and cause the Fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the Fund's initial investment. Other risks include illiquidity, mispricing or improper valuation of the derivative instrument, and imperfect correlation between the value of the derivative and the underlying instrument so that the Fund may not realize the intended benefits. When a derivative is used for hedging, the change in value of the derivative may also not correlate specifically with the currency, security, interest rate or other risk being hedged. With over-the-counter derivatives, there is the risk that the other party to the transaction will fail to perform.

     

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FRANKLIN HIGH YIELD CORPORATE ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

Convertible Securities Convertible securities are subject to the risks of stocks when the underlying stock price is high relative to the conversion price (because more of the security's value resides in the conversion feature) and debt securities when the underlying stock price is low relative to the conversion price (because the conversion feature is less valuable). A convertible security is not as sensitive to interest rate changes as a similar non-convertible debt security, and generally has less potential for gain or loss than the underlying stock.

Floating Rate Corporate Investments Floating rate corporate loans and corporate debt securities generally have credit ratings below investment grade and may be subject to resale restrictions. They are often issued in connection with highly leveraged transactions, and may be subject to greater credit risks than other investments including the possibility of default or bankruptcy. In addition, a secondary market in corporate loans may be subject to irregular trading activity, wide bid/ask spreads and extended trade settlement periods, which may impair the ability to accurately value existing and prospective investments and to realize in a timely fashion the full value upon the sale of a corporate loan. A significant portion of floating rate investments may be “covenant lite” loans that may contain fewer or less restrictive constraints on the borrower or other borrower-friendly characteristics.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.

Cybersecurity Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to fund assets, fund or customer data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the

     

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fund, the investment manager, authorized participants, or index providers (as applicable) and listing exchanges, and/or their service providers (including, but not limited to, fund accountants, custodians, sub-custodians, transfer agents and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality or prevent fund investors from purchasing, redeeming shares or receiving distributions. The investment manager has limited ability to prevent or mitigate cybersecurity incidents affecting third party service providers, and such third party service providers may have limited indemnification obligations to the fund or the investment manager. Cybersecurity incidents may result in financial losses to the fund and its shareholders, and substantial costs may be incurred in an effort to prevent or mitigate future cybersecurity incidents. Issuers of securities in which the fund invests are also subject to cybersecurity risks, and the value of these securities could decline if the issuers experience cybersecurity incidents.

Because technology is frequently changing, new ways to carry out cyber attacks are always developing. Therefore, there is a chance that some risks have not been identified or prepared for, or that an attack may not be detected, which puts limitations on the Fund's ability to plan for or respond to a cyber attack. Like other funds and business enterprises, the Fund, the investment manager, and their service providers are subject to the risk of cyber incidents occurring from time to time.

Quantitative Models The quantitative models that may be used by the investment manager as part of the Fund’s portfolio construction process to identify investment opportunities have been tested on historical price data. These models are based on the assumption that price movements in most markets display very similar patterns. There is the risk that market behavior will change and that the patterns upon which the forecasts in the models are based will weaken or disappear, which would reduce the ability of the models to generate an excess return. Further, as market dynamics shift over time, a previously highly successful model may become outdated, perhaps without the investment manager recognizing that fact before substantial losses are incurred. Successful operation of a model is also reliant upon the information technology systems of the investment manager and its ability to ensure those systems remain operational and that appropriate disaster recovery procedures are in place. There can be no assurance that the investment manager will be successful in maintaining effective and operational quantitative models and the related hardware and software systems.

Market Trading The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation/redemption process of the Fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

NAV when you buy shares of the Fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The investment manager cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.

To the extent that the underlying securities held by the Fund trade on an exchange that is closed when the securities exchange on which the Fund shares list and trade is open, there may be market uncertainty about the stale security pricing (i.e., the last quote from its closed foreign market) resulting in premiums or discounts to NAV that may be greater than those experienced by other ETFs.

Authorized Participant Concentration Only an authorized participant (Authorized Participant) may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), Fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.

Large Shareholder Certain shareholders, including other funds or accounts advised by the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund’s shares. In addition, a third-party investor, the investment manager or an affiliate of the investment manager, an authorized participant, a lead market maker, or another entity may invest in the Fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the Fund or to facilitate the Fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the Fund would be maintained at such levels or that the Fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the Fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the Fund's performance from year to year. The table shows how the Fund's average annual returns for 1 year, 5 years, 10 years or since inception, as applicable, compared with those of a broad measure of market performance. The Fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the Fund will perform in the future.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

You can obtain updated performance information at franklintempleton.com or by calling (800) DIAL BEN/342-5236.

Annual Total Returns

PerformanceBarChartData(2019:16.62,2020:7.42,2021:4.43,2022:-10.44)

     

Best Quarter:

2020, Q2

9.93%

Worst Quarter:

2020, Q1

-11.86%

 

As of June 30, 2023, the Fund’s year-to-date return was 5.98%.

Average Annual Total Returns

For periods ended December 31, 2022

             

 

 

1 Year

 

Since Inception

 

Franklin High Yield Corporate ETF

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return before taxes

 

-10.44%

 

3.25%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions

 

-12.69%

 

0.78%

1

 

Return after taxes on distributions and sale of Fund shares

 

-6.16%

 

1.48%

1

ICE BofA U.S. High Yield Constrained Index (index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)

 

-11.21%

 

2.37%

1

             

1.

Since inception May 30, 2018.

The after-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown. After-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax-advantaged arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

     

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FUND SUMMARIES

Investment Manager

Franklin Advisers, Inc. (Advisers or investment manager)

Portfolio Managers

Glenn I. Voyles, CFA
Senior Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2018).

Patricia O’Connor, CFA
Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since inception (2018).

Jonathan G. Belk, CFA
Portfolio Manager of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

Thomas Runkel, CFA
Vice President of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

Pururav Thoutireddy, Ph.D.
Portfolio Manager of Advisers and portfolio manager of the Fund since 2020.

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

The Fund is an ETF. Fund shares may only be purchased and sold on a national securities exchange through a broker-dealer. The price of Fund shares is based on market price, and because ETF shares trade at market prices rather than NAV, shares may trade at a price greater than NAV (a premium) or less than NAV (a discount). The Fund issues or redeems shares that have been aggregated into blocks of 50,000 shares or multiples thereof (Creation Units) to Authorized Participants who have entered into agreements with the Fund’s distributor, Franklin Distributors, LLC. The Fund will generally issue or redeem Creation Units in exchange for a basket of securities (which may include cash in lieu of certain securities) and/or an amount of cash that the Fund specifies each day.

An investor may incur costs attributable to the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay to purchase shares of the Fund (bid) and the lowest price a seller is willing to accept for shares of the Fund (ask) when buying or selling shares in the secondary market (the “bid-ask spread”). Recent information, including information on the Fund’s NAV, market price, premiums and discounts, and bid-ask spreads is available on the Fund’s website at https://www.franklintempleton.com/investor/investments-and-solutions/investment-options/etfs/.

     

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Taxes

The Fund’s distributions are generally taxable to you as ordinary income, capital gains, or some combination of both, unless you are investing through a tax-advantaged arrangement, such as a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account, in which case your distributions would generally be taxed when withdrawn from the tax-advantaged account.

Payments to Broker-Dealers and Other Financial Intermediaries

If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the investment manager or other related companies may pay the intermediary for certain Fund-related activities, including those that are designed to make the intermediary more knowledgeable about exchange traded products, such as the Fund, as well as for marketing, education or other initiatives related to the sale or promotion of Fund shares. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.

     

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FRANKLIN INTERNATIONAL AGGREGATE BOND ETF
FUND SUMMARIES

   

FLIA

  Franklin International Aggregate Bond ETF

Investment Goal

Total investment return, consistent with prudent investing, consisting of a combination of interest income and capital appreciation.

Fees and Expenses of the Fund

The following table describes the fees and expenses that you will incur if you buy, hold and sell shares of the Fund. You may also incur other fees, such as usual and customary brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and the Example that follows.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

     

 

 

 

Management fees

 

0.25%

Distribution and service (12b-1) fees

 

None

Other expenses

 

None

Total annual Fund operating expenses

 

0.25%

Example

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of the period. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

                   

 

 

 

1 Year

 

3 Years

 

5 Years

 

10 Years

Franklin International Aggregate Bond ETF

 

$26

 

$81

 

$141

 

$318

Portfolio Turnover

The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate

     

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higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual Fund operating expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 31.03% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in bonds and investments that provide exposure to bonds. Bonds include debt obligations of any maturity, such as bonds, notes, bills and debentures.

The Fund invests predominantly in fixed and floating-rate bonds issued by governments, government agencies and governmental-related or corporate issuers located outside the U.S. Bonds may be denominated and issued in the local currency or in another currency. The Fund may also invest in securities or structured products that are linked to or derive their value from another security, asset or currency of any nation. In addition, the Fund’s assets are invested in issuers located in at least three countries (excluding the U.S.). The Fund may invest without limit in developing or emerging markets.

The Fund may invest in debt securities of any maturity or duration, and the average maturity or duration of debt securities in the Fund’s portfolio will fluctuate depending on the investment manager’s outlook on changing market, economic, and political conditions. The Fund may also invest a portion of its assets in cash or cash equivalents.

The Fund is a “non-diversified” fund, which means it generally invests a greater portion of its assets in the securities of one or more issuers and invests overall in a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.

Although the Fund may buy bonds rated in any category, including securities in default, it focuses on “investment grade” bonds. These are issues rated in the top four rating categories at the time of purchase by at least one independent rating agency, such as S&P Global Ratings (S&P®) or Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) or, if unrated, determined by the Fund’s investment manager to be of comparable quality. The Fund may invest up to 20% of its total assets in bonds that are rated below investment grade or, if unrated, determined by the investment manager to be of comparable quality. Generally, lower rated securities pay higher yields than more highly rated securities to compensate investors for the higher risk.

For purposes of pursuing its investment goal, the investment manager seeks to hedge substantially all of the Fund’s foreign currency exposure using currency related derivatives, including currency and cross currency forwards and currency futures contracts. The Fund expects to maintain extensive positions in currency related derivative instruments as a hedging technique or to implement a currency

     

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investment strategy, which exposes a large amount of the Fund’s assets to obligations under these instruments. The results of such transactions may represent, from time to time, a large component of the Fund’s investment returns. The use of these derivative transactions may allow the fund to obtain net long or net negative (short) exposure to selected currencies. The Fund may also enter into various other transactions involving derivatives, including interest rate/bond futures contracts and interest rate swap agreements. These derivative instruments may be used for hedging purposes. Derivatives that provide exposure to bonds may be used to satisfy the Fund’s 80% policy.

When choosing investments for the Fund, the investment manager allocates the Fund’s assets based upon its assessment of changing market, political and economic conditions. It considers various factors, including evaluation of interest rates, currency exchange rate changes and credit risks. The investment manager may utilize quantitative models to identify investment opportunities as part of the portfolio construction process for the Fund. Quantitative models are proprietary systems that rely on mathematical computations to identify investment opportunities.

The investment manager may consider selling a security when it believes the security has become fully valued due to either its price appreciation or changes in the issuer’s fundamentals, or when the investment manager believes another security is a more attractive investment opportunity.

 

Principal Risks

You could lose money by investing in the Fund. ETF shares are not deposits or obligations of, or guaranteed or endorsed by, any bank, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, or any other agency of the U.S. government. The Fund is subject to the principal risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund’s net asset value (NAV), trading price, yield, total return and ability to meet its investment goal. Unlike many ETFs, the Fund is not an index-based ETF.

Foreign Securities (non-U.S.) Investing in foreign securities typically involves more risks than investing in U.S. securities, and includes risks associated with: (i) internal and external political and economic developments – e.g., the political, economic and social policies and structures of some foreign countries may be less stable and more volatile than those in the U.S. or some foreign countries may be subject to trading restrictions or economic sanctions; (ii) trading practices – e.g., government supervision and regulation of foreign securities and currency markets, trading systems and brokers may be less than in the U.S.; (iii) availability of information – e.g., foreign issuers may not be subject to the same disclosure, accounting and financial reporting standards and practices as U.S. issuers; (iv) limited markets – e.g., the securities of certain foreign issuers may be less liquid

     

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(harder to sell) and more volatile; and (v) currency exchange rate fluctuations and policies – e.g., fluctuations may negatively affect investments denominated in foreign currencies and any income received or expenses paid by the Fund in that foreign currency. The risks of foreign investments may be greater in developing or emerging market countries.

Currency Management Strategies Currency management strategies may substantially change the Fund’s exposure to currency exchange rates and could result in losses to the Fund if currencies do not perform as the investment manager expects. In addition, currency management strategies, to the extent that they reduce the Fund’s exposure to currency risks, also reduce the Fund’s ability to benefit from favorable changes in currency exchange rates. Using currency management strategies for purposes other than hedging further increases the Fund’s exposure to foreign investment losses. Currency markets generally are not as regulated as securities markets. In addition, currency rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time, and can reduce returns.

While the Fund’s currency hedging approach is designed to minimize the impact of currency fluctuations on Fund returns, it does not necessarily eliminate the Fund’s exposure to the currencies. The return of the currency related derivatives will not perfectly offset the actual fluctuations between the currencies and the U.S. dollar. In addition, the Fund will incur transaction costs in hedging its foreign currency exposure. The Fund’s exposure to the currencies may not be hedged at all times. While the Fund seeks to hedge against currency fluctuations, it is possible that a degree of currency exposure may remain even at the time a hedging transaction is implemented. Increased volatility of the U.S. dollar relative to the currencies being hedged will generally reduce the effectiveness of the Fund’s currency hedging strategy, measured on an aggregate basis. Significant differences between U.S. dollar interest rates and foreign currency interest rates may impact the effectiveness of the Fund’s currency hedging strategy.

Sovereign Debt Securities Sovereign debt securities are subject to various risks in addition to those relating to debt securities and foreign investments generally, including, but not limited to, the risk that a governmental entity may be unwilling or unable to pay interest and repay principal on its sovereign debt, or otherwise meet its obligations when due because of cash flow problems, insufficient foreign reserves, the relative size of the debt service burden to the economy as a whole, the government’s policy towards principal international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund, or the political considerations to which the government may be subject. If a sovereign debtor defaults (or threatens to default) on its sovereign debt obligations, the indebtedness may be restructured. Some sovereign debtors have in the past been able to restructure their debt payments without the approval of some or all debt holders or to declare moratoria on

     

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payments. In the event of a default on sovereign debt, the Fund may also have limited legal recourse against the defaulting government entity.

Regional Adverse conditions in a certain region or country can adversely affect securities of issuers in other countries whose economies appear to be unrelated. To the extent that the Fund invests a significant portion of its assets in a specific geographic region or a particular country, the Fund will generally have more exposure to the economic risks affecting that specific geographic region or country. In the event of economic or political turmoil or a deterioration of diplomatic relations in a region or country where a substantial portion of the Fund’s assets are invested, the Fund may experience substantial illiquidity or reduction in the value of the Fund’s investments.

Developing Market Countries The Fund’s investments in securities of issuers in developing market countries are subject to all of the risks of foreign investing generally, and have additional heightened risks due to a lack of established legal, political, business and social frameworks to support securities markets, including: delays in settling portfolio securities transactions; currency and capital controls; greater sensitivity to interest rate changes; pervasiveness of corruption and crime; currency exchange rate volatility; and inflation, deflation or currency devaluation.

Interest Rate When interest rates rise, debt security prices generally fall. The opposite is also generally true: debt security prices rise when interest rates fall. Interest rate changes are influenced by a number of factors, including government policy, monetary policy, inflation expectations, perceptions of risk, and supply of and demand for bonds. In general, securities with longer maturities or durations are more sensitive to interest rate changes.

Market The market values of securities or other investments owned by the Fund will go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. The market value of a security or other investment may be reduced by market activity or other results of supply and demand unrelated to the issuer. This is a basic risk associated with all investments. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices tend to fall. Likewise, when there are more buyers than sellers, prices tend to rise.

The global outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19 and its subsequent variants, has resulted in market closures and dislocations, extreme volatility, liquidity constraints and increased trading costs. The long-term impact on economies, markets, industries and individual issuers is not known. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers have experienced or may experience particularly large losses. Periods of extreme volatility in the financial markets; reduced liquidity of many instruments; and disruptions to supply chains, consumer demand and employee availability, may continue for some time.

     

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Credit An issuer of debt securities may fail to make interest payments or repay principal when due, in whole or in part. Changes in an issuer's financial strength or in a security's or government's credit rating may affect a security's value.

Derivative Instruments The performance of derivative instruments depends largely on the performance of an underlying instrument, such as a currency, security, interest rate or index, and such instruments often have risks similar to their underlying instrument, in addition to other risks. Derivative instruments involve costs and can create economic leverage in the Fund's portfolio which may result in significant volatility and cause the Fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the Fund's initial investment. Other risks include illiquidity, mispricing or improper valuation of the derivative instrument, and imperfect correlation between the value of the derivative and the underlying instrument so that the Fund may not realize the intended benefits. When a derivative is used for hedging, the change in value of the derivative may also not correlate specifically with the currency, security, interest rate or other risk being hedged. With over-the-counter derivatives, there is the risk that the other party to the transaction will fail to perform.

High-Yield Debt Securities Issuers of lower-rated or “high-yield” debt securities (also known as “junk bonds”) are not as strong financially as those issuing higher credit quality debt securities. High-yield debt securities are generally considered predominantly speculative by the applicable rating agencies as their issuers are more likely to encounter financial difficulties because they may be more highly leveraged, or because of other considerations. In addition, high yield debt securities generally are more vulnerable to changes in the relevant economy, such as a recession or a sustained period of rising interest rates, that could affect their ability to make interest and principal payments when due. The prices of high-yield debt securities generally fluctuate more than those of higher credit quality. High-yield debt securities are generally more illiquid (harder to sell) and harder to value.

Liquidity  The trading market for a particular security or type of security or other investments in which the Fund invests may become less liquid or even illiquid. Reduced liquidity will have an adverse impact on the Fund’s ability to sell such securities or other investments when necessary to meet the Fund’s liquidity needs or in response to a specific economic event and will also generally lower the value of a security or other investments. Market prices for such securities or other investments may be volatile.

Floating Rate Corporate Investments Floating rate corporate loans and corporate debt securities generally have credit ratings below investment grade and may be subject to resale restrictions. They are often issued in connection with highly leveraged transactions, and may be subject to greater credit risks than other investments including the possibility of default or bankruptcy. In addition, a secondary market in corporate loans may be subject to irregular trading activity,

     

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wide bid/ask spreads and extended trade settlement periods, which may impair the ability to accurately value existing and prospective investments and to realize in a timely fashion the full value upon the sale of a corporate loan. A significant portion of floating rate investments may be “covenant lite” loans that may contain fewer or less restrictive constraints on the borrower or other borrower-friendly characteristics.

Credit-Linked Securities Credit-linked securities, which may be considered to be a type of structured debt investment, represent an interest in a pool of, or are otherwise collateralized by, one or more reference securities such as corporate debt obligations or credit default swaps thereon or bank loan obligations. The Fund may lose money investing in credit-linked securities if a credit event (for example, a bankruptcy or failure to pay interest or principal or a restructuring) occurs with respect to a reference security, if the underlying securities otherwise perform poorly, or if certain counterparties fail to satisfy their obligations. The market for credit-linked securities may suddenly become illiquid, making it difficult for the Fund to sell such securities promptly at an acceptable price.

Income The Fund's distributions to shareholders may decline when prevailing interest rates fall, when the Fund experiences defaults on debt securities it holds or when the Fund realizes a loss upon the sale of a debt security.

Prepayment Prepayment risk occurs when a debt security can be repaid in whole or in part prior to the security's maturity and the Fund must reinvest the proceeds it receives, during periods of declining interest rates, in securities that pay a lower rate of interest. Also, if a security has been purchased at a premium, the value of the premium would be lost in the event of prepayment. Prepayments generally increase when interest rates fall.

Extension Some debt securities are subject to the risk that the debt security’s effective maturity is extended because calls or prepayments are less or slower than anticipated, particularly when interest rates rise. The market value of such security may then decline and become more interest rate sensitive.

Focus To the extent that the Fund focuses on particular countries, regions, industries, sectors or types of investment from time to time, the Fund may be subject to greater risks of adverse developments in such areas of focus than a fund that invests in a wider variety of countries, regions, industries, sectors or investments.

Non-Diversification Because the Fund is non-diversified, it may be more sensitive to economic, business, political or other changes affecting individual issuers or investments than a diversified fund, which may negatively impact the Fund's performance and result in greater fluctuation in the value of the Fund’s shares.

     

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Cash/Cash Equivalents To the extent the Fund holds cash or cash equivalents rather than securities in which it primarily invests or uses to manage risk, the Fund may not achieve its investment objectives and may underperform.

Management The Fund is subject to management risk because it is an actively managed ETF. The Fund's investment manager applies investment techniques and risk analyses in making investment decisions for the Fund, but there can be no guarantee that these decisions will produce the desired results.