The fund seeks to replicate the total return performance of the benchmark index, before fees and expenses, by investing in small-and mid-size companies in the United States.

The investment process starts with a list of companies in the benchmark index and the research team utilizes quantitative techniques and fundamental analysis to identify investment opportunities.

Next, the research team invests significantly in the secu More

The fund seeks to replicate the total return performance of the benchmark index, before fees and expenses, by investing in small-and mid-size companies in the United States.

The investment process starts with a list of companies in the benchmark index and the research team utilizes quantitative techniques and fundamental analysis to identify investment opportunities.

Next, the research team invests significantly in the securities that comprise the Underlying Index.

The Underlying Index is designed to select small- and medium-sized capitalization stocks that are poised for smart growth by evaluating each company’s performance in three critical areas, such as growth, profitability, and capital efficiency.

Growth measures include revenue growth rate; profitability measures include operating profit and earnings per-share; and capital efficiency measures include return on invested capital.

The team then employs a proprietary quantitative methodology to score such stocks, and the top 10% of such eligible stocks scoring the highest become eligible to be included in the portfolio.

Then the manager constructs a portfolio of stocks from a list of companies favored by the research team and allocates capital based on its conviction level.

The fund seeks to replicate the composition of the benchmark index, holding each security in approximately the same proportion as its weighting in the Index.

The fund may also invest in investments that are not included in the Underlying Index, such as stocks, shares of other investment companies, cash and cash equivalents, including affiliated or non-affiliated money market funds.

To the extent the Underlying Index concentrates in the securities of a particular industry or group of industries, the fund will concentrate its investments to approximately the same extent as the Underlying Index.

The fund may lend portfolio securities on a short-term or long-term basis, in an amount equal to up to one-third of its net assets.