| Investment Objective: |
The Fund is non-diversified & tracks the investment results (i.e., the total return) of the Bloomberg US Corporate BBB 1-5 Year Index Fund & is designed to reflect the performance of BBB (or its equivalent) fixed-rate, taxable U.S. dollar-denominated corporate bonds issued by U.S. and non-U.S. industrial, utility and financial issuers (as determined by Bloomberg Index Services Limited (the "Index Provider")). The bonds eligible for inclusion in the Index are taxable, U.S. dollar-denominated corporate bonds that (i) pay fixed-rate coupons (ii) have at least 500 million in par amount outstanding (par amount outstanding provides a measure of relative liquidity and is often seen as a proxy of the float available for investors to purchase) (iii) have a maturity of greater than or equal to one year and less than five years and (iv) carry a rating of Baa1/BBB, Baa2/BBB or Baa3/BBB- using Bloomberg's index rating methodology. BBB-rated bonds are considered investment grade. The Index is market value weighted based on amounts outstanding of issuances consisting of publicly issued BBB fixed-rate, taxable U.S. dollar- denominated bonds issued by U.S. and non-U.S. corporate issuers with remaining maturities of greater than or equal to one year and less than five years. |
