The Fund may invest up to 15% of its net assets in illiquid or thinly traded investments. The Fund also may invest in securities that are subject to resale restrictions such as those contained in Rule 144A promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. The Fund may also purchase municipal securities. The Fund's investments may include securities that do not produce immediate cash income, such as zero coupon securities and payment-in-kind securities. The Fund may also invest, subject to an overall 15% limit on loans, in loan participations or assignments.
The Fund may also invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs) and in the securities of other investment companies, including ETFs.
The Fund can invest in derivative instruments, including swap contracts, options, futures contracts and forward foreign currency contracts.
The Fund can use swap contracts, including interest rate swaps, to seek to hedge or adjust its exposure to interest rates. The Fund can also use swap contracts, including credit default swaps, to gain or reduce exposure to an asset class or a particular issue. The Fund can further use swap contracts, including credit default index swaps, to seek to hedge credit risk or take a position on a basket of credit entities and to gain or reduce exposure to an asset class or a particular issue; and use total return swaps to gain exposure to a reference asset.
The Fund can use options, including credit default swap options, to gain the right to enter into a credit default swap at a specified future date. The Fund can further use swaptions (options on swaps) to manage interest rate risk; currency options to manage currency exposure; and options on bond or rate futures to manage interest rate exposure.
The Fund can use futures contracts, including interest rate futures, to increase or reduce its exposure to interest rate changes. The Fund can also use currency futures contracts and/or forward foreign currency contracts to seek to hedge against adverse movements in the foreign currencies in which portfolio securities are denominated.
In selecting securities for the Fund's portfolio, the Adviser focuses on securities that it believes have favorable prospects for high current income and the possibility of growth of capital. The Adviser conducts a bottom-up fundamental analysis of an issuer before its securities are purchased by the Fund. The fundamental analysis involves an evaluation by a team of credit analysts of an issuer's financial statements in order to assess its financial condition. The credit analysts also assess the ability of an issuer to reduce its leverage (i.e., the amount of borrowed debt).
The bottom-up fundamental analysis is supplemented by an ongoing review of the securities' relative value compared with other junk bonds, and a top-down analysis of sector and macro-economic trends, such as changes in interest rates.
The portfolio managers attempt to control the Fund's risk by limiting the portfolio's assets that are invested in any one security, and by diversifying the portfolio's holdings over a number of different industries. Although the Fund is actively managed, it is reviewed regularly against its style-specific benchmark index (the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate High Yield 2% Issuer Cap Index) to assess the portfolio's relative risk and its positioning.
Decisions to purchase or sell securities are determined by the relative value considerations of the portfolio managers that factor in economic and credit-related fundamentals, market supply and demand, market dislocations and situation-specific opportunities. The purchase or sale of securities may be related to a decision to alter the Fund's macro risk exposure (such as duration, yield, curve positioning and sector exposure), a need to limit or reduce the Fund's exposure to a particular security or issuer, degradation of an issuer's credit quality, or general liquidity needs of the Fund. In attempting to meet its investment objective or to manage subscription and redemption requests, the Fund may engage in active and frequent trading of portfolio securities.
The credit research process utilized by the Fund to implement its investment strategy in pursuit of its investment objective considers factors that may include, but are not limited to, an issuer's operations, capital structure and environmental, social and governance ("ESG") considerations. Credit quality analysis for certain issuers therefore may consider whether
any ESG factors pose a material financial risk or opportunity to an issuer. The portfolio managers may determine that ESG considerations are not material to certain issuers or types of investments held by the Fund. In addition, not all issuers or investments in the Fund may undergo a credit quality analysis that considers ESG factors, and not all investments held by the Fund will rate strongly on ESG criteria.
Principal Risks of Investing in the Fund
As with any mutual fund investment, loss of money is a risk of investing. An investment in the Fund is not a deposit in a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other governmental agency. The risks associated with an investment in the Fund can increase during times of significant market volatility. The principal risks of investing in the Fund are:
Market Risk. The market values of the Fund's investments, and therefore the value of the Fund's shares, will go up and down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. Market risk may affect a single issuer, industry or section of the economy, or it may affect the market as a whole. The value of the Fund's investments may go up or down due to general market conditions that are not specifically related to the particular issuer, such as real or perceived adverse economic conditions, changes in the general outlook for revenues or corporate earnings, changes in interest or currency rates, regional or global instability, natural or environmental disasters, widespread disease or other public health issues, war, military conflict, acts of terrorism, economic crisis or adverse investor sentiment generally. During a general downturn in the financial markets, multiple asset classes may decline in value. When markets perform well, there can be no assurance that specific investments held by the Fund will rise in value.
High Yield Debt Securities (Junk Bond) Risk. Investments in high yield debt securities (junk bonds) and other lower-rated securities will subject the Fund to substantial risk of loss. These securities are considered to be speculative with respect to the issuer's ability to pay interest and principal when due, are more susceptible to default or decline in market value and are less liquid than investment grade debt securities. Prices of high yield debt securities tend to be very volatile.
Debt Securities Risk. The prices of debt securities held by the Fund will be affected by changes in interest rates, the creditworthiness of the issuer and other factors. An increase in prevailing interest rates typically causes the value of existing debt securities to fall and often has a greater impact on longer-duration debt securities and higher quality debt securities. Falling interest rates will cause the Fund to reinvest the proceeds of debt securities that have been repaid by the issuer at lower interest rates. Falling interest rates may also reduce the Fund's distributable income because interest payments on floating rate debt instruments held by the Fund will decline. The Fund could lose money on investments in debt securities if the issuer or borrower fails to meet its obligations to make interest payments and/or to repay principal in a timely manner. Changes in an issuer's financial strength, the market's perception of such strength or in the credit rating of the issuer or the security may affect the value of debt securities. The credit analysis applied to the Fund's debt securities may fail to anticipate such changes, which could result in buying a debt security at an inopportune time or failing to sell a debt security in advance of a price decline or other credit event.
Changing Fixed Income Market Conditions Risk. Increases in the federal funds and equivalent foreign rates or other changes to monetary policy or regulatory actions may expose fixed income markets to heightened volatility and reduced liquidity for certain fixed income investments, particularly those with longer maturities. It is difficult to predict the impact of interest rate changes on various markets. In addition, decreases in fixed income dealer market-making capacity may also potentially lead to heightened volatility and reduced liquidity in the fixed income markets. As a result, the value of the Fund's investments and share price may decline. Changes in central bank policies could also result in higher than normal
2 Invesco V.I. High Yield Fund