The portfolio managers maintain a rigorous sell discipline and consider selling or trimming a position in a stock when it no longer materially meets our investment criteria, including when (1) a stock reaches its fair valuation (target price); (2) a company's fundamental business prospects deteriorate; or (3) a more attractive investment opportunity presents itself.
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.
Investing in Stocks Risk. The value of the Fund's portfolio may be affected by changes in the stock markets. Stock markets may experience significant short-term volatility and may fall or rise sharply at times. Adverse events in any part of the equity or fixed-income markets may have unexpected negative effects on other market segments. Different stock markets may behave differently from each other and U.S. stock markets may move in the opposite direction from one or more foreign stock markets.
The prices of individual stocks generally do not all move in the same direction at the same time. However, individual stock prices tend to go up and down more dramatically than those of certain other types of investments, such as bonds. A variety of factors can negatively affect the price of a particular company's stock. These factors may include, but are not limited to: poor earnings reports, a loss of customers, litigation against the company, general unfavorable performance of the company's sector or industry, or changes in government regulations affecting the company or its industry. To the extent that securities of a particular type are emphasized (for example foreign stocks, stocks of small- or mid-cap companies, growth or value stocks, or stocks of companies in a particular industry), fund share values may fluctuate more in response to events affecting the market for those types of securities.
Value Investing Risk. Value investing entails the risk that if the market does not recognize that a selected security is undervalued, the prices of that security might not appreciate as anticipated. A value approach could also result in fewer investments that increase rapidly during times of market gains and could cause a fund to underperform funds that use a growth or non-value approach to investing. Value investing has gone in and out of favor during past market cycles and when value investing is out of favor or when markets are unstable, the securities of value companies may underperform the securities of growth companies or the overall stock market.
Dividend Risk. As a group, securities that pay high dividends may fall out of favor with investors and underperform companies that do not pay high dividends. Also, changes in the dividend policies of such companies and the capital resources available for such companies' dividend payments may affect the Fund. There is the possibility that dividend-paying companies could reduce or eliminate the payment of dividends in the future or an anticipated acceleration of dividends may not occur. Depending on market
conditions, dividend paying stocks that meet the Fund's investment criteria may not be widely available for purchase by the Fund, which may increase the volatility of the Fund's returns and limit its ability to produce current income while remaining fully diversified. High-dividend stocks may not experience high earnings growth or capital appreciation. The Fund's performance during a broad market advance could suffer because dividend paying stocks may not experience the same capital appreciation as non-dividend paying stocks.
Foreign Securities Risk. The Fund's foreign investments may be adversely affected by political and social instability, changes in economic or taxation policies, difficulty in enforcing obligations, decreased liquidity or increased volatility. Foreign investments also involve the risk of the possible seizure, nationalization or expropriation of the issuer or foreign deposits (in which the Fund could lose its entire investments in a certain market) and the possible adoption of foreign governmental restrictions such as exchange controls. Foreign companies generally may be subject to less stringent regulations than U.S. companies, including financial reporting requirements and auditing and accounting controls, and may therefore be more susceptible to fraud or corruption. There may be less public information available about foreign companies than U.S. companies, making it difficult to evaluate those foreign companies. Unless the Fund has hedged its foreign currency exposure, foreign securities risk also involves the risk of negative foreign currency rate fluctuations, which may cause the value of securities denominated in such foreign currency (or other instruments through which the Fund has exposure to foreign currencies) to decline in value. Currency exchange rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time. Currency hedging strategies, if used, are not always successful.
Management Risk. The Fund is actively managed and depends heavily on the Adviser's judgment about markets, interest rates or the attractiveness, relative values, liquidity, or potential appreciation of particular investments made for the Fund's portfolio. The Fund could experience losses if these judgments prove to be incorrect. There can be no guarantee that the Adviser's investment techniques or investment decisions will produce the desired results. Additionally, legislative, regulatory, or tax developments may adversely affect management of the Fund and, therefore, the ability of the Fund to achieve its investment objective.
Performance Information
The bar chart and performance table provide an indication of the risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows changes in the performance of the Series I shares of the Fund from year to year as of December 31. The performance table compares the Fund's performance to that of a style-specific benchmark and a broad-based securities market benchmark (in that order). The bar chart and performance table below do not reflect charges assessed in connection with your variable product; if they did, the performance shown would be lower. The Fund's past performance is not necessarily an indication of its future performance.
Fund performance reflects any applicable fee waivers and expense reimbursements. Performance returns would be lower without applicable fee waivers and expense reimbursements.
All Fund performance shown assumes the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains and the effect of the Fund's expenses.
The Series I shares and Series II shares invest in the same portfolio of securities and will have substantially similar performance, except to the extent that the expenses borne by each share class differ. Series II shares have higher expenses (and therefore lower performance) resulting from its Rule 12b-1 plan, which provides for a maximum fee equal to an annual rate of 0.25% (expressed as a percentage of average daily net assets of the Fund).
Updated performance information is available on the Fund's website at www.invesco.com/us.
2 Invesco V.I. Diversified Dividend Fund