The fund seeks capital appreciation in the long term by investing in companies in the United States.

The sub-advisor’s investment process is designed to highlight the most attractive brands contained in the Alpha Brands Consumer Spending Index.

The Index tracks the performance of 200 highly recognizable and relevant U.S. and foreign brands with a business to consumer and business to business focus. The Index is equall More

The fund seeks capital appreciation in the long term by investing in companies in the United States.

The sub-advisor’s investment process is designed to highlight the most attractive brands contained in the Alpha Brands Consumer Spending Index.

The Index tracks the performance of 200 highly recognizable and relevant U.S. and foreign brands with a business to consumer and business to business focus. The Index is equally weighted and is rebalanced and reconstituted annually in December.

Companies with a business to consumer focus primarily operate to create and sell products and/or services to the consumer on a direct basis or through intermediaries.

Companies with a business to business focus generally create and sell products and/or services to other businesses, which are typically used to aid these businesses in serving their clients.

The fund’s strategy is based on the premise that consumption drives the U.S. economy with roughly 70% of U.S. GDP derived from household consumption, and that brand loyalty, demographics, and incomes typically drive consumption habits.

The Index measures the performance of 180 U.S. listed companies and 20 non-U.S. listed companies selected from 70 sub-industries.

The Index methodology is designed to track the leading companies by isolating those companies with the highest market cap, three-year total sales and three-year sales growth.

A company is deemed a leading company in its consumer-focused industry or its business to business focused industry by virtue of being at the top of these rankings.

Then the research team employs fundamental analysis to identify companies with growth, value, size, momentum, balance sheet strength, profitability and dividend yield.

The team also considers interest rate movements and U.S. dollar movements when analyzing stock and sector allocations.

The sub-advisor utilizes fundamental and technical analysis to identify companies to include in the fund’s portfolio.

Fundamental analysis includes analyzing a company’s cash flow, sales, earnings per share, and intangible assets.

Technical analysis includes analyzing a company’s price movements over various time frames to identify the most attractive investment opportunity.

Then the manager constructs a focused portfolio that holds 25 to 50 stocks.

The fund may invest, directly or indirectly through investments in exchange traded funds, in both U.S. and foreign companies included in the Index, including through American Depositary Receipts and companies domiciled in emerging markets.

The fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents and in asset classes that have historically been safe havens when equities were experiencing drawdowns.