assets declines. If the value of fixed-income securities owned by the portfolio falls, the value of your investment will go down. The portfolio may lose its entire investment in the fixed-income securities of an issuer.
Liquidity - The portfolio may make investments that are illiquid or that become illiquid after purchase. Illiquid investments can be difficult to value, may trade at a discount from comparable, more liquid investments, and may be subject to wide fluctuations in value. Liquidity risk may be magnified in rising interest rate or volatile environments. If the portfolio is forced to sell an illiquid investment to meet redemption requests or other cash needs, the portfolio may be forced to sell at a substantial loss or may not be able to sell at all. Liquidity of particular investments, or even entire asset classes, including U.S. Treasury securities, can deteriorate rapidly, particularly during times of market turmoil, and those investments may be difficult or impossible for the portfolio to sell. This may prevent the portfolio from limiting losses.
Distressed or Defaulted Securities - Investments in defaulted securities and obligations of distressed issuers, including securities that are, or may be, involved in reorganizations or other financial restructurings, either out of court or in bankruptcy, involve substantial risks in addition to the risks of investing in high-yield debt securities. These securities are considered speculative with respect to the issuers' continuing ability to make principal and interest payments. The portfolio may incur costs to protect its investment, and the portfolio could lose its entire investment. Distressed securities and any securities received in an exchange for such securities may be subject to restrictions on resale.
Counterparty - The portfolio could lose money if the counterparties to derivatives, repurchase agreements and/or other financial contracts entered into for the portfolio do not fulfill their contractual obligations. In addition, the portfolio may incur costs and may be hindered or delayed in enforcing its rights against a counterparty. These risks may be greater to the extent the portfolio has more contractual exposure to a counterparty.
Extension - When interest rates rise, payments of fixed-income securities, including asset- and mortgage-backed securities, may occur more slowly than anticipated, causing their market prices to decline.
Prepayment or Call - Many issuers have a right to prepay their fixed-income securities. If this happens, the portfolio will not benefit from the rise in the market price of the securities that normally accompanies a decline in interest rates and may be forced to reinvest the prepayment proceeds in securities with lower yields.
Focused Investing - To the extent the portfolio invests in a limited number of countries, regions, sectors, industries or market segments, in a limited number of issuers, or in issuers in related businesses or that are subject to related operating risks, the portfolio will be more susceptible to negative events affecting those countries, regions, sectors, industries, segments or issuers, and the value of its shares may be more volatile than if it invested more widely.
Valuation - Certain investments may be more difficult to value than other types of investments. The sales price the portfolio could receive for any particular portfolio investment may differ from the portfolio's valuation of the investment, particularly for securities that trade in thin or volatile markets, that are priced based upon valuations provided by third party pricing services, or that are valued using a fair value methodology. These differences may
increase significantly and affect portfolio investments more broadly during periods of market volatility. Investors who purchase or redeem portfolio shares on days when the portfolio is holding fair-valued securities may receive fewer or more shares or lower or higher redemption proceeds than they would have received if the portfolio had not fair-valued securities or had used a different valuation methodology. The portfolio's ability to value its investments may also be impacted by technological issues and/or errors by pricing services or other third party service providers. Fair value pricing involves subjective judgment, which may prove to be incorrect.
Management - The value of your investment may go down if the investment manager's or sub-adviser's judgments and decisions are incorrect or otherwise do not produce the desired results, or if the investment strategy does not work as intended. You may also suffer losses if there are imperfections, errors or limitations in the quantitative, analytic or other tools, resources, information and data used, investment techniques applied, or the analyses employed or relied on, by the investment manageror sub-adviser, if such tools, resources, information or data are used incorrectly or otherwise do not work as intended, or if the investment manager's or sub-adviser's investment style is out of favor or otherwise fails to produce the desired results. Any of these things could cause the portfolio to lose value or its results to lag relevant benchmarks or other funds with similar objectives.
Active Trading - The portfolio may engage in active trading of its portfolio. Active trading will increase transaction costs and could detract from performance. Active trading may be more pronounced during periods of market volatility.
Bank Obligations - Investments in bank obligations may expose the portfolio to adverse developments in or related to the banking industry. Banks are sensitive to changes in money market and general economic conditions. Banks are highly regulated. Decisions by regulators may limit the loans banks make, affect the interest rates and fees they charge and reduce bank profitability.
Currency - The value of a portfolio's investments in securities denominated in foreign currencies increases or decreases as the rates of exchange between those currencies and the U.S. dollar change. U.S. dollar-denominated securities of foreign issuers may also be affected by currency risk. Currency exchange rates can be volatile and may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time. Currency conversion costs and currency fluctuations could reduce or eliminate investment gains or add to investment losses. A portfolio may be unable or may choose not to hedge its foreign currency exposure or any hedge may not be effective.
Cybersecurity - Cybersecurity incidents, both intentional and unintentional, may allow an unauthorized party to gain access to portfolio assets, portfolio or shareholder data (including private shareholder information), or proprietary information, cause the portfolio or its service providers (including, but not limited to, the portfolio's investment manager, any sub-adviser(s), transfer agent, distributor, custodian, fund accounting agent and financial intermediaries) to suffer data breaches, data corruption or loss of operational functionality, or prevent portfolio investors from purchasing, redeeming or exchanging shares, receiving distributions or receiving timely information regarding the portfolio or their investment in