The common theme across the LifeCycle categories is high and/or accelerating earnings growth and an established leadership position within the company's market. The Subadvisor diversifies the Fund's portfolio across the three LifeCycle categories to reflect its belief that growth stocks outperform over time, and seeks to ensure that it both capitalizes on dynamic emerging growth stocks and provides stability in the Fund's portfolio through investing in undervalued stocks that it believes have bright earnings growth prospects.
The Subadvisor's research into portfolio companies includes, but is not limited to, personal interviews with management and onsite visits to companies. Portfolio securities are assessed using criteria such as valuation, liquidity, purchases of shares by insiders, and conviction on the fundamentals to determine the most attractive names for the Fund's portfolio.
The Fund primarily invests its assets in issuers located in the U.S. However, the Fund may also invest in non-U.S. companies that are listed and traded on U.S. exchanges. In addition to the investment considerations outlined above, the Subadvisor integrates research into environmental, social and governance ("ESG") factors into its investment process. The key ESG considerations may vary depending on the industry, sector, geographic region or other factors and the core business of each issuer.
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 six risks) include:
Small Cap Risk: The Fund's performance may be more volatile because it invests in issuers that are smaller companies. Smaller companies may have limited product lines, markets and financial resources. Securities of smaller companies are usually less stable in price and less liquid than those of larger, more established companies. Additionally, small cap stocks may fall out of favor relative to mid or large cap stocks, which may cause the Fund to underperform other equity funds that focus on mid or large cap stocks.
Growth Style Risk: Over time, a growth oriented investing style may go in and out of favor, which may cause the Fund to underperform other equity funds that use different investing styles.
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.
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.
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. During stressed market conditions, the market for the Fund's shares may become less liquid in response to deteriorating liquidity in the market for the Fund's underlying portfolio holdings, which could in turn lead to differences between the market price of the Fund's shares and their net asset value.
Authorized Participant Concentration/Trading Risk: Only authorized participants ("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.
Cash Transactions Risk: The Fund may effect some or all of its creations and redemptions for cash rather than in-kind. As a result, an investment in the Fund may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that effects all of its creations and redemptions in-kind. Because the Fund may effect redemptions for cash, it may be required to sell portfolio securities in order to obtain the cash needed to distribute redemption proceeds. A sale of portfolio securities may result in capital gains or losses and may also result in higher brokerage costs. To the extent costs are not offset by transaction fees charged by the Fund to APs, the costs of cash transactions will be borne by the Fund.
Depositary Receipts Risk: American depositary receipts (or ADRs) are certificates evidencing ownership of shares of a foreign issuer. These certificates are issued by depository banks and generally trade on an established market in the U.S. The underlying shares are held in trust by a custodian bank or similar financial institution. The depository bank may not have physical custody of the underlying securities at all times and may charge fees for various services, including forwarding dividends and interest and corporate actions. American depositary receipts are alternatives to directly purchasing the underlying foreign securities in their national markets and currencies. American depositary receipts are subject to the risks associated with investing directly in foreign securities.
ESG Factors Risk: The consideration of ESG factors by the Subadvisor could cause the Fund to perform differently than other