NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) June 3, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today lowered its fund credit quality rating on the iShares Core Short-Term USD Bond ETF to 'BBB-f' from 'Af' and its fund credit quality rating on the iShares Core Long-Term USD Bond ETF to 'BB+f' from 'A-f'. At the same time, we affirmed our fund volatility rating on the short-term bond ETF at 'S2' and our fund volatility rating on the long-term bond ETF at 'S4'. We lowered the ratings on the two bond ETFs due to a change in the funds' principal investment strategies in which each fund will track a new underlying index effective June 3, 2014. The funds' strategies will change to include exposure to
