Investment Objective: |
The Fund seeks to achieve its objective by investing primarily in the common stock of small-capitalization (small-cap) U.S. companies. The investment adviser's investment strategy utilizes a small-cap approach by selecting most of its investments from companies listed in the Russell 2000 Index, an index that measures the performance of the 2,000 smallest U.S. companies by market capitalization within the Russell 3000 Index. Although the Fund's investments are primarily selected from companies listed in the Russell 2000 Index, the Fund is not designed to track the overall composition or returns of the Russell 2000 Index and the Adviser actively manages the Fund's investment strategy using the Fund's quantitative model. The Adviser implements its strategy using a quantitative model driven by fundamental and technical stock selection variables. This process seeks to impose strict discipline over stock selection, unimpeded by market or manager psychology. It seeks to maximize compound annual return while controlling risk. The process also takes into account trading costs in an effort to ensure that trades are generated only to the extent they are expected to be profitable on an after-trading-cost basis. |