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Investor A, Institutional | iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund
Fund Overview Key Facts About iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund
Investment Objective
The investment objective of iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund (the “Fund”), a series of BlackRock FundsSM (the “Trust”), is to seek to track the investment results of an index composed of U.S. 0-5 Year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (“TIPS”).
Fees and Expenses of the Fund
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses - Investor A, Institutional - iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund
Investor A Shares
Institutional Shares
Management Fee [1] 0.01% 0.01%
Distribution and/or Service (12b-1) Fees 0.25% none
Other Expenses 3.10% 3.23%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 3.36% 3.24%
Fee Waivers and/or Expense Reimbursements [1],[2] (3.00%) (3.13%)
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Fee Waivers and/or Expense Reimbursements [1],[2] 0.36% 0.11%
[1] As described in the “Management of the Fund” section of the Fund’s prospectus beginning on page 30, BlackRock Advisors, LLC (“BlackRock”) has contractually agreed to waive the management fee with respect to any portion of the Fund’s assets estimated to be attributable to investments in other equity and fixed-income mutual funds and exchange-traded funds managed by BlackRock or its affiliates that have a contractual management fee, through April 30, 2021. In addition, BlackRock has contractually agreed to waive its management fees by the amount of investment advisory fees the Fund pays to BlackRock indirectly through its investment in money market funds managed by BlackRock or its affiliates, through April 30, 2021. The contractual agreements may be terminated upon 90 days’ notice by a majority of the non-interested trustees of the Trust or by a vote of a majority of the outstanding voting securities of the Fund.
[2] As described in the “Management of the Fund” section of the Fund’s prospectus beginning on page 30, BlackRock has contractually agreed to waive and/or reimburse fees or expenses in order to limit Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Fee Waivers and/or Expense Reimbursements (excluding Dividend Expense, Interest Expense, Acquired Fund Fees and Expenses and certain other Fund expenses) to 0.36% of average daily net assets (for Investor A Shares) and 0.11% of average daily net assets (for Institutional Shares) through April 30, 2021. The Fund may have to repay some of these waivers and/or reimbursements to BlackRock in the following two years, and such repayment arrangement will terminate on February 16, 2023. The contractual agreement may be terminated upon 90 days’ notice by a majority of the non-interested trustees of the Trust or by a vote of a majority of the outstanding voting securities of the Fund.
Example:
This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
Expense Example - Investor A, Institutional - iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund - USD ($)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Investor A Shares 37 752 1,490 3,445
Institutional Shares 11 703 1,419 3,323
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 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 45% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies of the Fund
The Fund seeks to track the investment results of the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) 0-5 Years Index (Series-L) (the “Underlying Index”), which measures the performance of inflation-protected public obligations of the U.S. Treasury that have a remaining maturity of less than five years. Inflation-protected public obligations of the U.S. Treasury, commonly known as “TIPS,” are securities issued by the U.S. Treasury that are designed to provide inflation protection to investors. TIPS are income-generating instruments whose interest and principal payments are adjusted for inflation — a sustained increase in prices that erodes the purchasing power of money. The inflation adjustment, which is typically applied monthly to the principal of the bond, follows a designated inflation index, the consumer price index (“CPI”), and TIPS’ principal payments are adjusted according to changes in the CPI. A fixed coupon rate is applied to the inflation-adjusted principal so that as inflation rises, both the principal value and the interest payments increase. This can provide investors with a hedge against inflation, as it helps preserve the purchasing power of an investment. Because of this inflation adjustment feature, inflation-protected bonds typically have lower yields than conventional fixed-rate bonds. If there is deflation, the principal value of an inflation-linked security will be adjusted downward, and consequently the interest payments (calculated with respect to a smaller principal amount) will be reduced. During periods of deflation, low inflation or no inflation, a conventional bond may perform better than inflation-linked securities.

The Underlying Index includes all publicly-issued U.S. Treasury inflation-protected securities that have less than five years remaining to maturity, are rated investment-grade and have $250 million or more of outstanding face value. In addition, the securities in the Underlying Index must be denominated in U.S. dollars and have a notional coupon that is fixed-rate or zero. The Underlying Index is market capitalization-weighted and the securities in the Underlying Index are updated on the last calendar day of each month.

BlackRock uses a representative sampling indexing strategy to manage the Fund. “Representative sampling” is an indexing strategy that involves investing in a representative sample of securities that collectively has an investment profile similar to that of the Underlying 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 Underlying Index. The Fund may or may not hold all of the securities in the Underlying Index.

The Fund generally invests at least 90% of its assets, plus the amount of any borrowing for investment purposes, in securities of the Underlying Index. From time to time when conditions warrant, however, the Fund may invest at least 80% of its assets in securities of the Underlying Index. The Fund may invest a portion of the remainder of its assets in securities not included in the Underlying Index, but which BlackRock believes will help the Fund track the Underlying Index.
Principal Risks of Investing in the Fund
Risk is inherent in all investing. The value of your investment in the Fund, as well as the amount of return you receive on your investment, may fluctuate significantly from day to day and over time. You may lose part or all of your investment in the Fund or your investment may not perform as well as other similar investments. The following is a summary description of the principal risks of investing in the Fund. The order of the below risk factors does not indicate the significance of any particular risk factor.
  • Asset Class Risk — Securities and other assets in the Underlying Index or in the Fund’s portfolio may underperform in comparison to the general financial markets, a particular financial market or other asset classes.
  • Income Risk — The Fund’s income may decline due to a decline in inflation, deflation or changes in inflation expectations.
  • Index Fund Risk — An index fund has operating and other expenses while an index does not. As a result, while the Fund will attempt to track the Underlying Index as closely as possible, it will tend to underperform the index to some degree over time. If an index fund is properly correlated to its stated index, the fund will perform poorly when the index performs poorly.
  • Index-Related Risk — There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment results will have a high degree of correlation to those of the Underlying Index or that the Fund will achieve its investment objective. Market disruptions and regulatory restrictions could have an adverse effect on the Fund’s ability to adjust its exposure to the required levels in order to track the Underlying Index. Errors in index data, index computations or the construction of the Underlying Index in accordance with its methodology may occur from time to time and may not be identified and corrected by the index provider for a period of time or at all, which may have an adverse impact on the Fund and its shareholders. Unusual market conditions may cause the index provider to postpone a scheduled rebalance, which could cause the Underlying Index to vary from its normal or expected composition.
  • Interest Rate Risk — An increase in interest rates may cause the value of bonds, even inflation-protected bonds, held by the Fund to decline, may lead to heightened volatility in the fixed-income markets and may adversely affect the liquidity of certain fixed-income investments. The historically low interest rate environment, together with recent modest rate increases, heightens the risks associated with rising interest rates.
  • Issuer Risk — Fund performance depends on the performance of individual securities to which the Fund has exposure. Changes in the financial condition or credit rating of an issuer of those securities may cause the value of the securities to decline.
  • Management Risk — As the Fund may not fully replicate the Underlying Index, it is subject to the risk that BlackRock’s investment strategy may not produce the intended results.
  • Market Risk and Selection Risk — Market risk is the risk that one or more markets in which the Fund invests will go down in value, including the possibility that the markets will go down sharply and unpredictably. The value of a security or other asset may decline due to changes in general market conditions, economic trends or events that are not specifically related to the issuer of the security or other asset, or factors that affect a particular issuer or issuers, exchange, country, group of countries, region, market, industry, group of industries, sector or asset class. Local, regional or global events such as war, acts of terrorism, the spread of infectious illness or other public health issue, recessions, or other events could have a significant impact on the Fund and its investments. Selection risk is the risk that the securities selected by Fund management will underperform the markets, the relevant indices or the securities selected by other funds with similar investment objectives and investment strategies. This means you may lose money.
  • Passive Investment Risk — Because BlackRock does not select individual companies in the index that the Fund tracks, the Fund may hold securities of companies that present risks that an investment adviser researching individual securities might seek to avoid.
  • Tracking Error Risk — The Fund may be subject to tracking error, which is the divergence of the Fund’s performance from that of the Underlying Index. Tracking error may occur because of differences between the securities and other instruments held in the Fund’s portfolio and those included in the Underlying Index, pricing differences (including, as applicable, differences between a security’s price at the local market close and the Fund’s valuation of a security at the time of calculation of the Fund’s net asset value), transaction costs incurred by the Fund, the Fund’s holding of uninvested cash, differences in timing of the accrual of or the valuation of dividends or interest, the requirements to maintain pass-through tax treatment, portfolio transactions carried out to minimize the distribution of capital gains to shareholders, changes to the Underlying Index or the costs to the Fund of complying with various new or existing regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the Fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Underlying Index does not.
  • U.S. Treasury Obligations Risk — U.S. Treasury obligations may differ from other securities in their interest rates, maturities, times of issuance and other characteristics. Similar to other issuers, changes to the financial condition or credit rating of the U.S. government may cause the value of the Fund’s U.S. Treasury obligations to decline.
Performance Information
The information shows you how the Fund’s performance has varied for the periods since inception and provides some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The table compares the Fund’s performance to that of the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) 0-5 Years Index (Series-L). To the extent that dividends and distributions have been paid by the Fund, the performance information for the Fund in the chart and table assumes reinvestment of the dividends and distributions. As with all such investments, past performance (before and after taxes) is not an indication of future results.The table includes all applicable fees. If BlackRock and its affiliates had not waived or reimbursed certain Fund expenses during these periods, the Fund’s returns would have been lower. Updated information on the Fund’s performance, including its current net asset value, can be obtained by visiting www.blackrock.com or can be obtained by phone at (800) 882-0052.
iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund Investor A Shares ANNUAL TOTAL RETURNS As of 12/31
Bar Chart
During the periods shown in the bar chart, the highest return for a quarter was 1.58% (quarter ended June 30, 2019) and the lowest return for a quarter was -0.49% (quarter ended June 30, 2017).
As of 12/31/19 Average Annual Total Returns
Average Annual Total Returns - Investor A, Institutional - iShares Short-Term TIPS Bond Index Fund
1 Year
Since Inception
Inception Date
Investor A Shares 4.39% 1.93% Feb. 16, 2016
Investor A Shares | Return After Taxes on Distributions 3.55% 1.09% Feb. 16, 2016
Investor A Shares | Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares 2.59% 1.10% Feb. 16, 2016
Institutional Shares 4.66% 2.20% Feb. 16, 2016
Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) 0-5 Years Index (Series-L) (Reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes) 4.85% 2.29%  
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 the investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and the after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their shares through tax-deferred arrangements, such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts. After-tax returns are shown for Investor A Shares only. The after-tax returns for Institutional Shares will vary.