Potential to Outperform a Broad Universe of U.S. Stocks
PIMCO Fundamental IndexPLUS Fund employs an innovative strategy to seek to outperform its benchmark: the FTSE RAFITM 1000 Index, a fundamentals-based measure of the broad U.S. stock market. Generally, the Fund invests in derivatives that capture the price return of an enhanced version of the Index—Enhanced RAFITM 1000. It then fully collateralizes this exposure with an actively managed portfolio of short-term bonds. As a result, the Fund has the potential to enhance returns in two ways: through the construction of Enhanced RAFI 1000 and through PIMCO's active management of the fixed income collateral. Of course, the bond portfolio is subject to investment risk and may detract from rather than enhance portfolio returns.
Emphasis on Stocks with Stronger Fundamentals
Unlike traditional stock indexes, which are weighted by market capitalization, FTSE RAFI 1000 weights the stocks in its universe according to a combination of four fundamental factors: sales, cash flow, book value and, if applicable, dividends. In doing so, the Index aims to avoid a potential pitfall of market capitalization weighting—to overweight overvalued stocks and underweight undervalued stocks.
Enhanced RAFI 1000, which forms the basis of the Fund's equity exposure, takes this foundation of fundamental indexation a step further. To construct Enhanced RAFI 1000, Research Affiliates LLC, the Fund's subadviser, starts by recalibrating the four factors in the FTSE RAFI 1000 Index to place more weight on those that tend to have a greater impact on valuation. Research Affiliates then applies additional factors, such as the quality of earnings and the risk of financial distress, in seeking to further optimize the Enhanced RAFI 1000 weightings.
Expert Management
Bill Gross, founder and CIO of PIMCO, serves as the Fund's portfolio manager. As measured by assets under management, PIMCO is one of the country's largest investment advisors with a client list that includes many of the largest U.S. corporations. PIMCO was one of the first investment managers to specialize in active fixed-income management and pioneered a total return approach to bond investing--one that focuses on both income and capital appreciation--more than 30 years ago.
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