Fund Description: iShares Edge High Yield Defensive Bond ETF is an exchange-traded index fund or Index ETF which is a separate investment portfolio of the iShares Trust, an open-end investment management company. INVESTMENT OBJECTIVE: The iShares Edge High Yield Defensive Bond ETF seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the BlackRock High Yield Defensive Bond Index. INDEX DESCRIPTION: The BlackRock High Yield Defensive Bond Index consists of U.S. dollar-denominated, high yield corporate bonds. Component securities include publicly-issued debt of U.S. corporations and U.S. dollar-denominated, publicly issued debt of non-U.S. corporations or similar entities. The securities in the Index must have $350 million or more current face amount outstanding, and have at least one year to final maturity, regardless of optionality, at time of rebalance. In addition, the securities in the Index must be denominated in U.S. dollars and have a fixed-rate, although they can carry a coupon that steps-up, or changes according to a predetermined schedule, and must be rated below investment-grade. The Index determines constituent weights based on a proprietary methodology. This methodology, unlike the methodologies used by traditional market-value-weighted bond indexes, selects component bonds from the broader universe of high yield bonds based on application of analytics measuring the probability of default. The resulting grouping of bonds is referred to as defensive, by comparison to other groupings of high yield bonds, because those included in the Index possess specific characteristics that the index methodology identifies as reducing the risk of default. The Index is rebalanced on the last business day of each month. FUND STRATEGY: A passive or indexing approach is used to try to achieve the Fund's investment objective. Unlike many investment companies, the Fund does not try to beat the Index and does not seek temporary defensive positions when markets decline or appear overvalued. Indexing may eliminate the chance that the Fund will substantially outperform its Index but also may reduce some of the risks of active management, such as poor security selection. Representative sampling is an indexing strategy that is used which involves investing in a representative sample of securities or other instruments comprising the Index. The securities selected are expected to have, in the aggregate, investment characteristics (based on factors such as market capitalization and industry weightings), fundamental characteristics (such as return variability and yield) and liquidity measures similar to those of the Index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the Index. The Fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the Index and may invest up to 20% of its assets in certain index futures, options, options on index futures, swap contracts or other derivatives, as related to its Index, cash and cash equivalents, other investment companies, as well as in securities and other instruments not included in the Index. The Fund may lend securities representing up to one-third of the value of the Fund's total assets (including the value of any collateral received). FUND MANAGEMENT: BlackRock Fund Advisors (BFA) serves as the investment advisers to the Fund.