fundamental or valuation-based analysis and one or more valuation or financial indicators (which may include, among others, earnings, cash flow, asset values, or comparable company analysis), as applied within the Advisor's investment process.
The Fund seeks to invest in companies whose future prospects are misunderstood or not fully recognized by the market. The Fund employs a fundamental value investing approach which seeks to exploit market inefficiencies created by irrational investor behavior, such as investment decisions driven by emotions, biases, or cognitive errors. To identify these investment opportunities, the Fund employs a disciplined, bottom-up investment process based on a proprietary model that is augmented with internally-generated fundamental research. The Fund seeks broad diversified exposure to these investment opportunities by holding approximately 150 to 200 portfolio securities. As part of the Advisor's investment process, the investment team evaluates the general and industry-specific Environmental, Social, and Governance ("ESG") factors that the Advisor believes to be the most financially material to a company's short-, medium-, and long-term enterprise value. The Advisor believes this evaluation contributes to its overall analysis of a company's value creation for shareholders and future financial performance. With the exception of diversification guidelines, the Fund does not employ pre-determined rules for sales; rather, the Fund evaluates each sell candidate based on the candidate's specific risk and return characteristics which include: 1) relative valuation; 2) fundamental operating trends; 3) deterioration of fundamentals; 4) portfolio diversification; and 5) strategy parameters. Relative valuation involves selling an investment when a company's valuation metrics become high relative to comparable companies, the market, or its historical levels. Fundamental operating trends involves selling an investment when there is evidence of a decline in a company's underlying business performance or industry conditions. Deterioration of fundamentals involves selling an investment when a company's underlying business or industry fundamentals, such as revenue or earnings, weaken. Portfolio diversification refers to selling holdings to maintain balance, manage risk, and optimize returns. Strategy parameters means selling an investment based on the Advisor's proprietary investment approach to deciding when to sell an investment based on certain predetermined metrics.
As of the date of this Prospectus, the top sectors represented by the Fund's underlying investments were financials and industrials. The Fund's investments in various sectors may change over time.
Principal Investment Risks. As with any ETF, the value of the Fund's investments, and therefore the value of its shares, may go down and you could lose all or a portion of your investment in the Fund. Many factors can affect those values. The factors that are most likely to have a material effect on the Fund's portfolio as a whole are called "principal risks." The principal risks of investing in the Fund are described in this section.
Market Risk. Market risk is the risk that the market price of securities owned by the Fund may go down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably, due to factors affecting securities markets generally or particular industries represented in the securities markets. These factors include general domestic or foreign economic, political or financial market conditions, rates of economic growth and employment, trade and monetary policy, interest rates, inflation, and currency rates. Natural
disasters, public health emergencies (including pandemics and epidemics), global conflict and war, military conflict, climate change, terrorism and other unforeseeable events that adversely affect individual companies, industries, sectors, and/or segments of the market, may lead to instability in world economies and markets and may have negative long-term effects. Any of such factors could have a materially negative impact on the value of the Fund's shares or the liquidity of an investment and may result in increased market volatility. During any such events, the Fund's shares may trade at increased premiums or discounts to their net asset value ("NAV"), the bid/ask spread on the Fund's shares may widen and the returns on investment may fluctuate.
Style Risk. The Advisor follows an investing style that favors value investments. Value investing style may over time go in and out of favor in certain market cycles. At times when the value investing style is out of favor, the Fund's performance may be negatively impacted. Investors should be prepared to tolerate volatility in Fund returns.
Equity Securities Risk. Equity securities, both common and preferred stocks, have greater price volatility than fixed income securities. The market price of equity securities owned by the Fund may go down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. Equity securities may decline in value due to factors affecting the issuer, equity securities markets generally or particular industries represented by those markets, including poor management on the part of the stock's issuer, shrinking product demand and other business risks, such as rapid technological developments or widespread adoption of emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence).
Capitalization Risk. Investment in small and mid-cap companies may involve more risk than investing in larger, more established companies. Small and mid-cap companies may have limited product lines or markets. They may be less financially secure than larger, more established companies. They may depend on a small number of key personnel. Should a product fail, or if management changes, or if there are other adverse developments, the Fund's investment in a small or mid-cap company may lose substantial value. In addition, small and mid-cap companies may be particularly affected by interest rate increases, as they may find it more difficult to borrow money to continue or expand operations, or may have difficulty in repaying any loans.
Active Management Risk. The Fund is subject to active management risk because it is an actively managed investment portfolio. The Advisor invests in securities that may not necessarily be included in the Fund's benchmark. The Advisor may misjudge the risk and/or return potential of a security. This misjudgment can result in a loss or a significant performance deviation relative to its benchmark. The Advisor does not seek to replicate the performance of any index.
Industrials Sector Risk. The Fund will not concentrate its investments (i.e., invest more than 25% of the value of its total assets) in securities of issuers in any industry or group of industries. As of the date of this Prospectus, the Fund currently invests a significant portion of its assets in companies in the industrials sector, and therefore the performance of the Fund could be negatively impacted by events affecting this sector. The industrials sector can be significantly affected by, among other things, worldwide economic growth, supply and demand for specific products and services, rapid technological developments, and government regulation. Aerospace and defense companies, a