JPMorgan
Inflation Managed Bond ETF
FUND
COMMENTARY
SIX
MONTHS ENDED August
31, 2022 (Unaudited)
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Bloomberg
1-10 Year U.S. TIPS Index |
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Bloomberg
U.S. Intermediate Aggregate Index |
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Net
Assets as of 8/31/2022 |
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INVESTMENT
OBJECTIVE***
The JPMorgan
Inflation Managed Bond ETF1 (the “Fund”) seeks
to
maximize inflation protected total return.
HOW
DID THE MARKET PERFORM?
Already under
pressure from accelerating inflation and investor expectations for
rising interest rates, financial markets buckled following Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022. The military
conflict and the ensuing imposition of multilateral
sanctions against Russia fueled volatility across equity, bond and
commodities markets. Meanwhile, China’s strict anti-pandemic
measures dented its economic growth and weighed on financial
assets in emerging markets throughout the
period.
In response to the
highest rate of domestic inflation in decades, the U.S. Federal
Reserve (the “Fed”) in late March 2022 raised interest rates for
the first time since late 2018. The Fed followed with
benchmark interest rate increases of increasing size in May, June
and July 2022.
Within U.S. fixed
income markets, investor demand largely turned to higher
rated bonds of shorter duration. Generally, bonds of shorter
duration will experience a smaller decrease in price relative to
longer duration bonds when interest rates rise. Yields, which
generally move in the opposite direction of bond prices, rose and the
difference or “spread” between yields on the 10-year U.S.
Treasury bond and other investment grade bonds widened during
the period, as investors sought higher quality debt. U.S.
agency mortgage-backed securities and municipal bonds
underperformed other sectors of the bond market.
WHAT
WERE THE MAIN DRIVERS OF THE FUND’S PERFORMANCE?
For the six months
ended August 31, 2022, the Fund underperformed the
Bloomberg 1-10 Year U.S. TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected
Securities) Index (the “Index”) and outperformed the
Bloomberg U.S. Intermediate Aggregate Index.
Relative to the
Index, the Fund’s allocations to so-called spread sectors, mostly
investment grade corporate credit and agency mortgage-backed
securities, were leading detractors from performance relative
to the Index. The Fund’s shorter overall duration, its yield
curve positioning and its positioning for inflation were
leading contributors to performance relative to the Index.
Bonds of shorter duration generally experience a smaller decline in
price relative to longer duration bonds when interest rates rise.
The yield curve shows the relationship between yields and
maturity dates for a set of similar bonds at a given point in
time. The Fund’s inflation positioning was accomplished by
manipulating the difference between its real duration and nominal
duration.
The Fund’s inflation
positioning was the leading contributor to performance relative
to the Bloomberg U.S. Intermediate Aggregate
Index.
HOW
WAS THE FUND POSITIONED?
Among the Fund’s
fixed income holdings, the Fund’s portfolio managers continued
to focus on security selection and relative value, which seeks
to exploit pricing discrepancies between individual
securities or market sectors. The Fund’s portfolio managers used
bottom-up fundamental research to construct, in their view, a
portfolio of undervalued fixed income securities.
The Fund’s portfolio
managers sought to protect the portfolio from inflation risk
across maturities. Therefore, the yield curve positioning of the
underlying core bonds was used as the general basis for
the Fund’s inflation swap positioning.
The Fund’s portfolio
managers manage the duration of the inflation protection
versus the duration of the underlying bonds to protect the
portfolio from actual, realized inflation, as well as from the loss of
value that results from an increase in inflation expectations. The
inflation protection was actively managed using U.S. Consumer
Price Index for All Urban Consumers (the “CPI-U”) swaps
and TIPS. Generally, the swaps were structured so that a
counterparty agrees to pay the cumulative percentage change in the CPI-U
over the duration of the swap. In turn, the Fund pays a
compounded fixed rate. U.S. Treasury TIPS adjust
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J.P.
Morgan Exchange-Traded Funds
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