The use of indices is for illustrative purposes only. Unlike the Fund, some indices are unmanaged, are not available for direct investment and are not subject to management fees and other fees and expenses. The Fund does not restrict its investments to securities in the indices described. No index is directly comparable to the investment strategy of the Fund. Information about the index is derived from sources that we believe to be reliable, but we have not independently verified them and do not warrant as to its accuracy or completeness.
The Barclays Corporate High Yield Index covers the universe of fixed rate, non-investment grade debt. Pay-in-kind (PIK) bonds, Eurobonds, and debt issues from countries designated as emerging markets (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.) are excluded, but Canadian and global bonds (SEC registered) of issuers in non-EMG countries are included. Original issue zeroes, step-up coupon structures, and 144-As are also included.
The Barclays Global Aggregate Index provides a broad-based measure of the global investment grade fixed income markets. The three major components of this index are the U.S. Aggregate, the Pan-European Aggregate, and the Asian-Pacific Aggregate Indices. The index also includes Eurodollar and Euro-Yen corporate bonds, Canadian government, agency and corporate securities, and USD investment grade 144A securities.
The Citigroup Broad Investment Grade Bond Index is an unmanaged index generally representative of the performance of the investment grade corporate and U.S. government bonds.
The Dow Jones – UBS Commodity Index Total Return index is comprised of futures contracts on 19 physical commodities. It reflects the return on fully collateralized futures positions and is quoted in USD.
The HFRI Equity Hedge Total Index is equally weighted performance index. The HFRI is broken down into four main strategies, each with multiple sub-strategies. This index represents the Equity Hedged strategy, which includes funds who maintain positions both long and short in primarily equity and equity derivative securities. A wide variety of investment processes can be employed to arrive at an investment decision, including both quantitative and fundamental techniques; strategies can be broadly diversified or narrowly focused on specific sectors and can range broadly in terms of levels of net exposure, leverage employed, holding period, concentrations of market capitalizations and valuation ranges of typical portfolios. Equity Hedged managers would typically maintain at least 50%, and may in some cases be substantially entirely invested in equities, both long and short.
The HFRI Event Driven (Total) Index is an equally weighted performance index. The HFRI is broken down into four main strategies, each with multiple sub-strategies. This index represents the Event Driven strategy, which is also known as corporate life cycle investing. The constituents of this index are funds investing in opportunities created by significant transactional events of a wide variety, including but not limited to spin-offs, mergers and acquisitions, tender offers, security issuance, bankruptcy reorganizations, recapitalizations and share buybacks. Event Driven exposure includes a combination of sensitivities to equity markets, credit markets and idiosyncratic, company specific developments.
HFRI FOF: Conservative Index FOFs classified as “conservative” exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: seeks consistent returns by primarily investing in funds that generally engage in more “conservative” strategies such as Equity Market Neutral, Fixed Income Arbitrage, and Convertible Arbitrage.
The HFRI FOF: Diversified Index includes fund of funds classified as “diversified.” Fund of funds classified as “diversified” exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: invests in a variety of strategies among multiple managers; historical annual return and/or a standard deviation generally similar to the HFRI Fund of Fund Composite index.
The HFRI Fund of Funds Composite Index is an equally weighted performance index broken down into 37 different categories by strategy. There is no required asset-size minimum for fund inclusion in the HFRI and there is no required length of time a fund must be actively trading before inclusion in the HFRI.
The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index is a global, equal-weighted index of over 2,000 single-manager funds that report to HFR Database. Constituent funds report monthly net of all fees performance in US Dollar and have a minimum of $50 Million under management or a twelve (12) month track record of active performance. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index does not include Funds of Hedge Funds.
The HFRI Macro Total Index is equally weighted performance index. The HFRI are broken down into four main strategies, each with multiple sub-strategies. This index represents the Macro strategy, which involves investing by making leveraged bets on anticipated price movements of stock markets, interest rates, foreign exchange and physical commodities. Macro managers employ a “top-down” global approach, and may invest in any market using any instrument to participate in expected market movements. These movements may result from forecasted shifts in world economies, political fortunes or global supply and demand for resources, both physical and financial. Exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives are often used to magnify these price movements.
The HFRI Macro: Systematic Diversified Index is equally weighted performance index. The HFRI are broken down into four main strategies, each with multiple sub-strategies. The HFRI Macro: Systematic Diversified Index represents the Systematic Diversified sub-strategy, which involves investing by employing mathematical, algorithmic and technical models, with little or no influence of individuals over the portfolio positioning. Managers in these strategies employ an investment process designed to identify opportunities in markets exhibiting trending or momentum characteristics across individual instruments or asset classes. The quantitative aspect of the investment process is focused on identifying statistically robust or technical patterns in the return series of the asset, and typically highly liquid instruments. Systematic managers maintain shorter holding periods than either discretionary or mean reverting approaches. Although some systematic strategies seek to employ counter trend models, the strategy tends to benefit most from an environment characterized by persistent, discernable trending behavior.
The HFRI Relative Value (Total) Index is equally weighted performance index, utilized by numerous hedge fund managers as a benchmark for their own hedge funds. The HFRI are broken down into four main strategies, each with multiple sub-strategies. This index represents the Relative Value Arbitrage strategy, which attempts to take advantage of relative pricing discrepancies between instruments involving equities, debt, options and futures. Managers may use mathematical, fundamental, or technical analysis to determine misvaluations. Securities may be mispriced relative to the underlying security, related securities, groups of securities, or the overall market. Many funds use leverage and seek opportunities globally. Arbitrage strategies include dividend arbitrage, pairs trading, options arbitrage and yield curve trading.
The J.P. Morgan Government Bond Index is the most widely-used measure of performance of leading government bond markets. The indices measure the total, principal, and interest returns in each market and can be reported in 18 different currencies. By including only traded issues, the Index provides a realistic measure of market performance for international investors
The MSCI World Index is a free float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index that is designed to measure the equity market performance of developed markets. As of June 2007 the MSCI World Index consisted of the following 23 developed market country indices: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The MSCI EMF Index is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure equity market performance in the global emerging markets.
The MSCI World Total Return Index uses the same methodology as the MSCI $ World Index but also includes reinvestment of dividends. Net Dividends: This series approximates the minimum possible dividend reinvestment. The dividend is reinvested after deduction of withholding tax, applying the rate to non-resident individuals who do not benefit from double taxation treaties. MSCI uses with holding tax rates applicable to Luxembourg holding companies, as Luxembourg applies the highest rates. The index performance has been translated into the feeder currency using the applicable daily currency exchange rate from Bloomberg.
The Nikkei 225 JPY Index Stock Average is a price-weighted average of 225 top-rated Japanese companies listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Standard and Poor’s 500 Index (S&P500) is a capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks. The index is designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.
S&P GSCI Total Return Index is a fully-collateralized index, showing total return an investor would receive from S&P GSCI excess return plus T-bill return on the collateral. Its components are updated on a yearly basis and include energy, industrial metals, precious metals, livestock, and agricultural commodities. The S&P GSCI can offer a benchmark for investment performance in the commodity markets.