that may apply for the periods indicated above under "Fees and Expenses." Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
|
1 Year
|
3 Years
|
5 Years
|
10 Years
|
Class I Shares
|
$100
|
$338
|
$595
|
$1,329
|
Class II Shares
|
125
|
416
|
728
|
1,613
|
Portfolio Turnover
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in Annual Fund Operating Expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 27.79% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The Fund seeks to provide investors with long-term capital growth by creating a portfolio of non-U.S. equity securities exhibiting long-term growth and quality characteristics. The Fund normally invests primarily in non-U.S. securities, including issuers in emerging market countries, and is not limited in the percentage of its assets that it may invest in any one country, region or geographic area. Emerging market countries typically are developing and low- or middle-income countries. Emerging market countries may be found in regions such as Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The Fund may invest in issuers of any size market capitalization, including smaller capitalization companies. The Fund may invest without limit in initial public offerings ("IPOs") of issuers to seek to capitalize on the opportunity for growth, although such IPOs may not be available for investment by the Fund and the impact of any such IPO would be uncertain. Under normal conditions, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities issued by companies that are located in, or that derive at least 50% of their earnings or revenues from, countries located around the world other than the United States. Under normal market conditions, the Fund also typically holds a limited number of stocks.
The Fund's subadviser combines bottom-up fundamental stock selection with industry, sector and regional analyses. The subadviser's investment process seeks to capture returns from identifying the inefficiencies that result from the failure of markets to price in the impact of economic liquidity (especially monetary conditions), the under-appreciated impact of structural change, and the underpricing of companies' sustainable competitive advantages. The subadviser therefore generally buys stocks of companies in countries that exhibit these traits and are generating high and improving returns on invested capital, and generally sells stocks of companies that may not meet these criteria.
The Fund may achieve its exposure to non-U.S. securities either directly, including through investments in securities listed outside the United States, or indirectly in U.S.-listed securities of non-U.S. issuers, or through depositary receipts such as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). Many securities in which the Fund invests are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.
Principal Risks
The Fund cannot guarantee that it will achieve its investment objective.
As with any fund, the value of the Fund's investments-and therefore, the value of Fund shares-may fluctuate. These changes may occur because of:
Equity securities risk- stock markets are volatile. The price of an equity security fluctuates based on changes in a company's financial condition and overall market and economic conditions.
Market risk - the risk that one or more markets in which the Fund invests will go down in value, including the possibility that the markets will go down sharply and unpredictably. This occurs due to numerous factors, including interest rates, the outlook for corporate profits, the health of the national and world economies, and the fluctuation of other securities markets around the world. These risks may be magnified if certain social, political, economic and other conditions and events (such as natural disasters, epidemics and pandemics, terrorism, conflicts and social unrest) adversely interrupt the global economy.
Selection risk - the risk that the securities selected by the Fund's subadviser will underperform the markets, the relevant indexes or the securities selected by other funds with similar investment objectives and investment strategies.