The fund’s investment objective is to provide a high level of current income as is consistent with the preservation of capital.

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and example below.

* The fund’s Investment Advisory and Service Agreement provides that the investment adviser will pay all operating expenses of the fund, except for the management fees, interest expenses, taxes, acquired fund fees and expenses, costs of holding shareholder meetings, legal fees and expenses relating to arbitration or litigation, payments under the fund’s 12b-1 plan (if any) and other non-routine or extraordinary expenses. Additionally, the fund will be responsible for its non-operating expenses, including brokerage commissions and fees and expenses associated with the fund’s securities lending program, if any.

This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other funds.

The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same. No fees are charged by the fund upon the sale of fund shares, so you would incur these hypothetical costs whether or not you were to sell your shares at the end of the given period.

The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund’s investment results. During the most recent fiscal year, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 188% of the average value of its portfolio.

The fund seeks to maximize your level of current income and preserve your capital by investing primarily in bonds. The fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in bonds and other debt securities (such as those described below), which may be represented by derivatives. Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 40% of its assets outside the United States, unless market conditions are not deemed favorable by the fund’s investment adviser, in which case the fund would invest at least 30% of its assets outside the United States. The fund allocates its assets among various countries, and in no fewer than three countries other than the United States.

The fund may invest up to 15% of its assets in debt securities rated BB+ or below or Ba1 or below by Nationally Recognized Statistical Ratings Organizations designated by the fund’s investment adviser, or in debt securities that are unrated but determined to be of equivalent quality by the fund’s investment adviser. Securities rated BB+ or below or Ba1 or below are sometimes referred to as “junk bonds.” The fund also invests in U.S. government securities, money market instruments, and cash and cash equivalents.

The fund may invest in forward currency contracts, futures contracts and swaps, which are types of derivatives. A derivative is a financial contract, the value of which is based on the value of an underlying financial asset (such as a stock, bond or currency), a reference rate or a market index. The fund seeks to hedge all, or substantially all, of the fund’s foreign currency exposure using forward currency contracts, such that under normal market conditions, the fund will maintain at least 90% of its assets in U.S. dollar currency exposure. The use of these derivative transactions may allow the fund to obtain net long or net negative (short) exposure to selected currencies.

The fund may invest in a broad range of debt securities, including corporate bonds and debt securities issued by sovereign, quasi-sovereign and supranational entities. The fund may also invest in mortgage-backed securities issued by government-sponsored entities and federal agencies and instrumentalities that are not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government and other asset-backed securities, including debt obligations that represent interests in pools of mortgages or other income bearing assets, such as consumer loans or receivables.

The fund is nondiversified, which means it may invest a greater portion of its assets in fewer issuers than would otherwise be the case.

The fund’s assets are managed by a team of portfolio managers. Under this approach, the fund’s managers work together to oversee the fund’s entire portfolio. For more information regarding the investment process of the fund, see the “Management and organization” section of this prospectus.

The fund relies on the professional judgment of its investment adviser to make decisions about the fund’s portfolio investments. The basic investment philosophy of the investment adviser is to seek to invest in attractively priced securities that, in its opinion, represent good investment opportunities. Securities may be sold when the investment adviser believes that they no longer represent relatively attractive investment opportunities.

The following bar chart shows the fund’s investment results for its first full calendar year of operations, and the following table shows how the fund’s average annual total returns for various periods compare with a broad measure of securities market results and, if applicable, other measures of market results that reflect the fund’s investment universe. This information provides some indication of the risks of investing in the fund. Past investment results (before and after taxes) are not predictive of future investment results. Updated information on the fund’s investment results can be obtained by visiting capitalgroup.com/etf.