defaulted in the payment of interest or principal or in the performance of its covenants or agreements, securities of issuers that may be involved in bankruptcy proceedings, reorganizations or financial restructurings of securities of issuers operating in troubled industries.
In seeking to track the Underlying Index, the Fund may invest in corporate bonds structured as corporate debt securities, public or private placements, restricted and other unregistered securities and U.S. dollar-denominated securities of foreign issuers.
Beta is a measure of the volatility of a security or a portfolio relative to a market benchmark. The term "BetaBuilders" in the Fund's name conveys the intended outcome of providing investors with passive exposure and return that generally correspond to a market cap weighted benchmark. The Fund, along with other JPMorgan BetaBuilders Funds, can be used to help an investor build a portfolio of passive exposure to various markets.
The Fund, using a "passive" or indexing investment approach, attempts to closely correspond to the performance of the Underlying Index. Unlike many actively-managed funds, the Fund does not seek to outperform the Underlying Index and does not seek temporary defensive positions when markets decline or appear overvalued.
The Fund intends to utilize a "representative sampling" strategy whereby securities are chosen in order to attempt to approximate the investment characteristics of the constituent securities. Targeted investment characteristics of the collective portfolio include asset class exposure, industry weightings, liquidity, and other fixed income specific attributes (such as yield, duration, credit quality, spread and maturity). Even when the Fund utilizes representative sampling, it must still invest at least 80% of its Assets in securities included in the Underlying Index. The Fund's portfolio will be rebalanced monthly in accordance with the monthly rebalancing of the Underlying Index.
The Fund will not invest 25% or more of the value of its total assets in the securities of companies conducting their principal business activities in the same industry.
The Fund's Main Investment Risks
The Fund is subject to management risk and may not achieve its objective if the adviser's expectations regarding particular instruments or markets are not met.
An investment in this Fund or any other fund may not provide a complete investment program. The suitability of an investment in the Fund should be considered based on the investment objective, strategies and risks described in this prospectus, considered in light of all of the other investments in your portfolio, as well as your risk tolerance, financial goals and time horizons. You may want to consult with a financial advisor to determine if this Fund is suitable for you.
The Fund is subject to the main risks noted below, any of which may adversely affect the Fund's net asset value (NAV), market price, performance and ability to meet its investment objective.
General Market Risk. Economies and financial markets throughout the world are becoming increasingly interconnected, which increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one country or region will adversely impact markets or issuers in other countries or regions. Securities in the Underlying Index or in the Fund's portfolio may underperform in comparison to securities in general financial markets, a particular financial market or other asset classes due to a number of factors, including inflation (or expectations for inflation), deflation (or expectations for deflation), interest rates, global demand for particular products or resources, market instability, debt crises and downgrades, embargoes, tariffs, sanctions and other trade barriers, regulatory events, other governmental trade or market control programs and related geopolitical events. In addition, the value of the Fund's investments may be negatively affected by the occurrence of global events such as war, terrorism, environmental disasters, natural disasters or events, country instability, and infectious disease epidemics or pandemics.
For example, the outbreak of COVID-19 has negatively affected economies, markets and individual companies throughout the world, including those in which the Fund invests. The effects of this pandemic to public health and business and market conditions, including, among other things, reduced consumer demand and economic output, supply chain disruptions and increased government spending, may continue to have a significant negative impact on the performance of the Fund's investments, increase the Fund's volatility, negatively impact the Fund's arbitrage and pricing mechanisms, exacerbate pre-existing political, social and economic risks to the Fund, and negatively impact broad segments of businesses and populations. In addition, governments, their regulatory agencies, or self-regulatory organizations have taken or may take actions in response to the pandemic that affect the instruments in which the Fund invests, or the issuers of such instruments, in ways that could have a significant negative impact on the Fund's investment performance. The duration and extent of COVID-19 and associated economic and market conditions and uncertainty over the long-term cannot be reasonably estimated at this time. The ultimate impact of COVID-19 and the extent to which the associated conditions impact the Fund will also depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain, difficult to accurately predict and subject to frequent changes.
Index Related Risk. The Fund's return may not track the return of the Underlying Index for a number of reasons and therefore may not achieve its investment objective. For example, the Fund incurs a number of operating expenses not applicable to the Underlying Index, and incurs costs in buying and selling securities, especially when rebalancing the Fund's securities holdings to reflect changes in the composition of the Underlying Index. In addition, the Fund's return may differ from the return of the Underlying Index as a result of, among other things, pricing differences between the valuation of securities in the Underlying Index and in the Fund's NAV and the inability to purchase certain securities included in the Underlying Index due to regulatory or other restrictions.
In addition, because the Fund uses a representative sampling approach, the Fund may not be as well correlated with the return of the Underlying Index as when the Fund purchases all of the securities in the Underlying Index in the proportions in which they are represented in the Underlying Index.