...NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) Dec. 19, 2017--S&P Global Ratings today said it has taken rating actions on 74 iShares fixed-income exchange traded funds (ETFs) and subsequently removed the "under criteria observation" (UCO) designation. The rating actions follow our review of each fund under our revised FCQR and FVR criteria (see "Fund Credit Quality Ratings Methodology," and "Fund Volatility Ratings Methodology," published June 26, 2017). The ratings were assigned the UCO designation on June 26, 2017, in conjunction with the release of the revised fund credit quality rating (FCQR) and fund volatility rating (FVR) criteria on the same date. The review of the iShares funds under the revised FCQR criteria resulted in 63 upgrades, nine affirmations, one downgrade, and one rating withdrawal. The rating changes are largely due to the revision of the credit factors, the fund rating thresholds, and the addition of a short-term maturity bucket in our FCQR matrix. The increase in the credit factors...
