Mindy Yu, CIMA®

Target Income built with BlackRock: New name, new strategy Mar 16, 2026 1:01:04 PM BlackRock is updating its Target Income strategy. Here's what's changing, what's staying the same, and how we'll manage your transition. Betterment offers a range of investment options to help investors stay in the market. As part of that commitment, Betterment partners with third-party asset managers like BlackRock to offer additional portfolio choices, including an all-bond strategy. As markets evolve, investment managers may refine or update their approaches. BlackRock is discontinuing the legacy BlackRock Target Income portfolio and is launching a new strategy in partnership with Betterment, Target Income built with BlackRock, which introduces an updated investment framework designed to build a more resilient income portfolio across market environments. Betterment is partnering with BlackRock to transition existing investors to the new strategy. Let’s discuss what’s changing and what’s remaining the same. What’s changing A new investment framework and team The previous strategy relied heavily on a quantitative approach targeting specific yields. The new strategy uses the Multi-Asset Income (MAI) framework from BlackRock’s Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions (MASS) team, which combines data-driven analysis with fundamental research to build a more adaptable income portfolio. The goal: Build a more resilient income portfolio across market environments, with thoughtful attention to credit risk, duration, and diversification. The strategy will continue to maintain and further lean into exposures in the form of: Expanded access to different bond sectors like emerging market and high-yield debt, as well as collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) for example. Flexibility in shifting across duration and fixed-income sectors, using both active and passive funds. The new approach will also incorporate a high-yield benchmark, the iBoxx USD Liquid High Yield Index, to better reflect the level of credit risk in the portfolio—rather than relying solely on the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, which tracks investment-grade bonds. What’s staying the same A focus on income Target Income built with BlackRock will remain an all-bond strategy designed to generate income. Four income levels Investors will still be able to choose from four risk levels—Core, Moderate, High, and Aggressive. Built with BlackRock The strategy continues to be constructed with BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers, using ETFs to provide diversified exposure across fixed income sectors. Overall, BlackRock will continue to provide fund selection and apply its broader house and macro views to the strategy’s asset allocation decisions. However, the management of the strategy will shift to BlackRock's MASS team and MAI framework described above. How Betterment will manage the transition to Target Income built with BlackRock Betterment will manage the transition for investors. For taxable accounts, Betterment will gradually transition investors with our technology, including proactive rebalancing, designed to seek the most tax-efficient path. Tax-advantaged accounts such as Betterment IRAs and Betterment 401(k)s won’t see any tax impact as a result of these updates. To learn about the new Target Income built with the BlackRock portfolio, check out the relevant portfolio pages and disclosures on our website. Investors can also see their updated holdings in the Betterment app with only a few clicks. It’s yet another example of how we make it easy to be invested.

2026 portfolio updates: What financial advisors need to know Jan 5, 2026 10:15:00 AM Updates to the Betterment managed strategies are coming soon. As part of Betterment’s investment oversight, our Investing team regularly reviews and updates our portfolio strategies to align with changing market conditions. In our 2026 portfolio updates, we are implementing strategic adjustments across multiple portfolios, guided by updated capital market assumptions, the expected risk and return profiles of asset classes. Portfolios refreshed by the 2026 strategy changes: Core portfolio Value Tilt portfolio Innovative Technology portfolio All Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) portfolios: Broad, Social, and Climate Impact Crypto ETF portfolio Key investment shifts: equities, bonds, and crypto Equities: We are modestly increasing our exposure to U.S. large-caps, while reducing exposure to U.S. mid-caps, for nearly all portfolios. This better aligns our portfolios with benchmarks while maintaining strong diversification. Fixed Income: This year, we’re introducing an additional actively managed bond fund to our non-SRI portfolios. Unlike traditional passive bond strategies, which tend to overweight U.S. Treasuries, active management gives us the ability to be more flexible and seek opportunities across broader areas of the bond market. This added flexibility helps portfolios stay aligned with shifting market conditions. In a declining interest rate environment, segments like securitized products and high-yield bonds may offer more attractive risk-adjusted return potential. At select risk levels across our portfolios (including all three of our SRI portfolios), we’re also adjusting short-term bond allocations by slightly increasing exposure to short-term Treasuries. These changes help smooth the glide path used in our auto-adjust feature, which de-risks clients as they approach their goal’s target date. Betterment Crypto ETF portfolio: We are increasing our bitcoin and decreasing our ethereum allocation to align with its market capitalization weight. Further changes include obtaining these exposures through lower-cost funds, which reduces the portfolio’s weighted average expense ratio of the portfolio by 0.10%. How these updates affect your clients’ portfolios Similar to last year’s updates, we plan to update allocations for newly funded portfolios towards the end of January 2026. For existing goals, our automated rebalancing feature will transition client portfolios to the new target portfolio weights, using clients’ dividends, deposits, and withdrawals and sell/buy rebalancing to manage the transition tax-efficiently. Funds that are no longer in the target allocation may be retained to help reduce potential tax impact, while future cash flows will be directed toward the new primary holdings. Rebalancing will respect any gains allowance, or other rebalancing settings that you’ve set for your clients’ goals. You can log into the Advisor Dashboard to review and update your client gains allowances, or disable system rebalancing if you prefer to rely on only cash flows to reduce drift in your client accounts. You’ll want to adjust settings before the end of January to ensure they're in effect before portfolio updates are made. Learn more about Betterment’s investment approach If you’d like to find out more about Betterment’s approach to investing, you can check out these articles: Portfolio Construction Process: Core, Value, Innovative Technology ETF Selection Methodology

2025 portfolio updates: What financial advisors need to know Jan 21, 2025 12:05:59 PM Updates to Core, Value Tilt, SRI, and Innovative Tech are coming soon. As part of Betterment’s investment oversight, our Investing team regularly reviews and updates our portfolio strategies to align with changing market conditions. For 2025, we are implementing strategic adjustments across multiple portfolios that are guided by updated capital market assumptions and asset class expectations. These are the portfolios that will be impacted: Core portfolio Value Tilt portfolio Innovative Technology portfolio Socially Responsible Investing portfolios (Broad, Social, and Climate Impact) Key changes for 2025 Equities: We are modestly increasing our exposure to the U.S., while reducing exposure to emerging markets, for nearly all portfolios. Fixed Income: The biggest change this year will be felt by portfolios with larger bond allocations. We expect U.S. short-term, high-grade corporate bonds to offer higher yields without undue increases in long-term risk, so we’re increasing the exposure to them while decreasing the weight of short-term U.S. Treasuries. The yields on these types of treasury bonds, which mature in a year or less, tend to fall right along with interest rates, and a lower interest rate environment is still expected in the long run. Innovative Technology portfolio: We’re diversifying the Innovative Technology portfolio by adding a new actively managed fund. This new ETF builds on themes like AI and biotech, while adding more exposure to large-cap stocks and the Information Technology sector (hardware, software, etc.) as a whole. More information is available in the Innovative Tech portfolio disclosure. What this means for your clients We plan to update allocations for newly funded portfolios starting in February 2025. For existing goals, our automated rebalancing feature will transition client portfolios to the new target portfolio weights—using clients’ dividends, deposits, and withdrawals and sell/buy rebalancing to manage the transition tax-efficiently. Rebalancing will respect any gains allowance, or other rebalancing settings that you’ve set for your clients’ goals. You can log into the Advisor Dashboard to review and update your client gains allowances, or disable system rebalancing if you prefer to rely on only cash flows to reduce drift in your client accounts. These settings adjustments should be in place by early February to ensure that adjustments are in effect before portfolio updates are made. Additional resources If you’d like to learn more about our approach to investing, you can check out these articles: Portfolio Construction Process: Core, Value, Innovative Technology ETF Selection Methodology SRI Methodology Innovative Technology Article and disclosures