If you're interested in broad exposure to the Industrials - Aerospace & Defense segment of the equity market, look no further than the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA), a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on May 1, 2006.

Passively managed ETFs are becoming increasingly popular with institutional as well as retail investors due to their low cost, transparency, flexibility and tax efficiency. They are excellent vehicles for long term investors.

Investor-friendly, sector ETFs provide many options to gain low risk and diversified exposure to a broad group of companies in particular sectors. Industrials - Aerospace & Defense is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 2, placing it in top 13%.

Index Details

The fund is sponsored by Blackrock. It has amassed assets over $12.68 billion, making it one of the largest ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Industrials - Aerospace & Defense segment of the equity market. ITA seeks to match the performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Aerospace & Defense Index before fees and expenses.

The Dow Jones U.S. Select Aerospace & Defense Index measures the performance of the aerospace and defense sector of the U.S. equity market.

Costs

Expense ratios are an important factor in the return of an ETF and in the long term, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive counterparts, other things remaining the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.37%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.26%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Industrials sector -- about 98.9% of the portfolio.

Looking at individual holdings, Ge Aerospace (GE) accounts for about 22.02% of total assets, followed by Rtx (RTX) and Boeing (BA).

The top 10 holdings account for about 77.23% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF has added about 0.94% so far this year and it's up approximately 6.54% in the last one year (as of 09/22/2026). In that past 52-week period, it has traded between $198.23 and $253.215.

The ETF has a beta of 0.74 and standard deviation of 19.8% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 52 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF holds a Zacks ETF Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. Because of this, ITA is an excellent option for investors seeking exposure to the Industrials ETFs segment of the market. There are other additional ETFs in the space that investors could consider as well.

Global X Defense Tech ETF (SHLD) tracks GLOBAL X DEFENSE TECH INDEX and the Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF (PPA) tracks SPADE Defense Index. Global X Defense Tech ETF has $6.99 billion in assets, Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF has $7.69 billion. SHLD has an expense ratio of 0.5%, and PPA charges 0.58%.

Bottom Line

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.

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iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA): ETF Research Reports

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research