its obligations. The credit rating assigned to a
security or its issuer does not necessarily reflect the issuer’s current financial condition or an investment’s volatility or liquidity. An actual or perceived decline
in an issuer’s creditworthiness may result in a decrease in the value and liquidity of its securities as well as greater price volatility, which may make it difficult to sell
the securities. The Fund may be adversely affected if an investment that it holds experiences a downgrade or a default.
Income
Risk. The Fund’s income may decline due to falling interest rates or other factors. This can occur because the Fund may be required to invest in lower-yielding bonds when a bond in the Fund’s portfolio matures, is near maturity, is called or is prepaid, when bonds in the Underlying Index are substituted, or when the Fund otherwise needs to purchase additional bonds.
The Index Provider’s substitution of bonds in the Underlying Index may occur, for example, when the time to maturity for the bond no longer matches the Underlying
Index’s stated maturity guidelines.
Issuer
Risk. The performance of the Fund depends on the performance of individual securities or other assets to which the
Fund has exposure. The value of securities or other assets may decline, or perform differently from the market as a whole, due to changes in the financial condition or credit rating of the issuer or counterparty.
Large Shareholder and Large-Scale Redemption Risk. Certain shareholders of
the Fund, including an Authorized Participant, a third-party investor, the Fund’s adviser, an affiliate of the Fund’s adviser, a market maker, or another entity, may
from time to time own or manage a substantial amount of Fund shares, or may hold their investment in the Fund for a limited period of time. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder or large group of shareholders would not redeem their
investment. Redemptions of a large number of Fund shares could require the Fund to dispose of assets to meet the
redemption requests, which can accelerate the realization of taxable income and/or capital gains and cause the Fund to make taxable distributions to its shareholders earlier than the Fund otherwise would have. In addition, under certain circumstances,
non-redeeming shareholders may be treated as receiving a disproportionately large taxable distribution during or with respect to such year. In some circumstances, the Fund may hold a relatively large proportion of its assets in cash in
anticipation of large redemptions, diluting its investment returns. These large redemptions may also force the Fund to sell portfolio securities or other assets when it might not otherwise do so, which may negatively impact the Fund’s NAV, increase the Fund’s brokerage costs and/or have a material effect on the market price of Fund shares.
Management Risk. The Fund generally does not attempt to take defensive
positions under any market conditions, including declining markets. As the Fund will not fully replicate the Underlying Index and may hold securities or other assets not included in the Underlying Index, it is subject to the risk that the investment strategy of BFA may not produce the intended
results. 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 Trading Risk. The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active
market for Fund shares (including through a trading halt), losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility, and disruptions in the process of creating and redeeming Fund shares. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the Fund’s shares trading in the secondary market at a premium or discount to NAV or to the intraday value of the Fund’s portfolio
holdings. If you buy Fund shares at a time when the market price is at a premium to NAV or sell Fund shares at a time when the market price is at a discount to NAV, you may pay significantly more or receive significantly less than the underlying value
of the Fund shares.
Non-Diversification Risk. The Fund is classified as “non-diversified.” This means that, compared with funds that are classified as
“diversified,” the Fund may invest a greater percentage of its assets in securities or other instruments representing a small number of
issuers or counterparties and thus may be more susceptible to the risks associated with these particular issuers or counterparties. As a result, the Fund's performance may depend to
a greater extent on the performance of a small number of issuers or counterparties, which may lead to more volatility in the Fund’s NAV.
Operational and Technology Risks. The Fund is directly and indirectly susceptible to operational and technology risks, including those related to human errors,
processing errors, communication errors, systems failures, cybersecurity incidents, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (“AI”), which may result in losses for the Fund and its shareholders or may impair the Fund’s operations. While the
Fund’s service providers are required to have appropriate operational, information security and cybersecurity risk management policies and procedures, their methods of risk
management may differ from those of the Fund. Operational and technology risks for the issuers in which the Fund invests could also result in material adverse consequences for such issuers and may cause the Fund’s investments in such issuers to lose value.
Risk of Investing in the U.S. Investing in U.S. issuers subjects the Fund to legal, regulatory, political, currency, security, and economic risks that are
specific to the U.S. Certain changes in the U.S., such as a weakening of the U.S. economy or a decline in its financial markets, may have an adverse effect on U.S.
issuers.
Tax Risk. There is no guarantee that the Fund’s income will be exempt from U.S. federal, state or local income taxes, the federal
AMT or the federal Medicare contribution tax of 3.8% on “net investment income.” Neither BFA nor the Fund guarantees that an
opinion from bond counsel about a security’s tax-exempt status is correct, and there is no assurance that the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) will agree with the bond counsel’s opinion. Events occurring after a municipal bond is