The Subadvisor then uses a proprietary optimization technique along with risk management tools to analyze stock weight decisions and select the portfolio that it believes maximizes alpha for a given level of risk. This optimization tool also analyzes several risk metrics, including, among others, tracking error relative to the Fund's benchmark, market risk, and concentration risk.
The Fund primarily invests its assets in issuers located in the U.S. From time to time, the Fund may invest a significant portion of its assets in companies in one or more related industries or sectors.
The Fund is classified as non-diversified, which means the Fund may invest in the securities of a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.
Principal Risks
There is no guarantee that the investment objective of the Fund will be achieved. Stocks fluctuate in price and the value of your investment in the Fund may go down. This means that you could lose money on your investment in the Fund or the Fund may not perform as well as other investment options. Principal risks impacting the Fund (in alphabetical order after the first seven risks) include:
Equity Risk: The values of equity or equity-related securities may decline due to general market conditions that are not specifically related to a particular company, such as real or perceived adverse economic conditions, changes in the general outlook for corporate earnings, changes in interest or currency rates or adverse investor sentiment generally. They may also decline due to factors that affect a particular industry or industries, such as labor shortages or increased production costs and competitive conditions within an industry. Equity securities generally have greater price volatility than fixed income securities.
Large Cap Risk: Large cap stocks may fall out of favor relative to small or mid cap stocks, which may cause the Fund to underperform other equity funds that focus on small or mid cap stocks. Large cap companies may be less able than smaller cap companies to adapt to changing market conditions and may be more mature and subject to more limited growth potential than smaller cap companies.
Large Shareholder Risk: Certain large shareholders, including authorized participants ("APs"), may from time to time own a substantial amount of the Fund's shares. There is no requirement that these shareholders maintain their investment in the Fund. There is a risk that such large shareholders or that the Fund's shareholders generally may redeem all or a substantial portion of their investments in the Fund in a short period of time, which could have a significant negative impact on the Fund's NAV, liquidity, and brokerage costs. Large redemptions could also result in tax consequences to shareholders and impact the Fund's ability to implement its investment strategy. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the listing exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Market Risk: Securities markets are volatile and can decline significantly in response to adverse market, economic, political, regulatory or other developments, which may lower the value of securities held by the Fund, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. Events such as war, acts of terrorism, social unrest, natural disasters, recessions, inflation, rapid interest rate changes, supply chain disruptions, sanctions, the spread of infectious illness or other public health threats could also significantly impact the Fund and its investments.
Model Risk: There are limitations inherent in every quantitative model. The value of securities selected using quantitative analysis can react differently to issuer, political, market, and economic developments than the market as a whole or securities selected using only fundamental analysis. The factors used in quantitative analysis and the weight placed on those factors may not be predictive of a security's value. In addition, historical trends in data may not be predictive going forward. The strategies and techniques employed in a quantitative model cannot fully match the complexity of the financial markets and therefore sudden unanticipated changes in underlying market conditions can significantly impact their performance. The effectiveness of the given strategy or technique may deteriorate in an unpredictable fashion for any number of reasons including, but not limited to, an increase in the amount of assets managed or the use of similar strategies or techniques by other market participants and/or market dynamic shifts over time. In addition, factors that affect a security's value can change over time, and these changes may not be reflected in the quantitative model. Any model may contain flaws the existence and effect of which may be discovered only after the fact or not at all. There can be no assurances that the strategies pursued or the techniques implemented in the quantitative model will be profitable, and various market conditions may be materially less favorable to certain strategies than others. Even in the absence of flaws, a model may not perform as anticipated.
Authorized Participant Concentration/Trading Risk: Only APs may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. The Fund has a limited number of institutions that may act as APs and such APs have no obligation to submit creation or redemption orders. Consequently, there is no assurance that APs will establish or maintain an active trading market for the shares. This risk may be heightened to the extent that securities held by the Fund are traded outside a collateralized settlement system. In that case, APs may be required to post collateral on certain trades on an agency basis (i.e., on behalf of other market participants), which only a limited number of APs may be able to do. In addition, to the extent that APs exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the Fund and no other AP is able to step forward to create or redeem Creation Units (as defined below), this may result in a significantly diminished trading market for shares, and shares may be more likely to trade at a premium or discount to the Fund's net asset value and to face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be heightened during periods of volatility or market disruptions.
Premium/Discount Risk: The market price of the Fund's shares will generally fluctuate in accordance with changes in the Fund's net asset value as well as the relative supply of and demand for shares on the Exchange. The Advisor cannot predict whether shares will trade below, at or above their net asset value because the shares trade on the Exchange at market prices and not at net asset value. Price differences may be due, in large part, to the fact that supply and demand forces at work in the secondary trading market for shares will be closely related, but not identical, to the same forces influencing the prices of the holdings of the Fund trading individually or in the aggregate at any point in time. This may result in the Fund's shares trading significantly above (premium) or below (discount) the Fund's net asset value, which will be reflected in the intraday bid/ask spreads and/or the closing price of shares as compared to net asset value. However, given that shares can be purchased and redeemed in Creation Units to and from broker-dealers and large institutional investors that have entered into participation agreements (unlike shares of closed-end funds, which frequently trade at appreciable discounts from, and sometimes at premiums to, their net asset value), the Advisor believes that