| Investment Objective: |
The Fund invests in the companies that pay dividend income. Virtus Systematic ("Systematic"), a division of Virtus Advisers, LLC, the Fund's sub-adviser, believes that behavioral biases of investors contribute to market inefficiencies, creating opportunities. Systematic's quantitative investment process begins with a proprietary alpha model that uses artificial intelligence to power Natural Language Processing for sentiment analysis, which blends behavioral factors (e.g., human behaviors and biases) and intrinsic valuation factors (e.g., tangible measures of a company's underlying worth). The final investment and trading decisions are made by Systematic's portfolio management personnel. In order to arrive at the final investment portfolio selection, Systematic's portfolio management personnel complement the recommendations produced by the alpha model with a dynamic risk management overlay and qualitative reviews. Systematic's utilizes a risk model for portfolio construction, with constraints at the individual security and industry levels to manage exposures relative to the Fund's benchmark. The investment process puts a particular focus on higher dividend paying stocks, which results in the Fund with a higher dividend yield higher than the typical emerging market equity. |
