US Low Volatility Strategy Portfolio Series 17

Under normal circumstances, the Trust invests at least 80% of the value of its assets in common stocks of U.S. companies that the Sponsor believes are lower volatility securities from the S&P 500 Index. The Trust applies a series of screens to determine the final portfolio, including measuring the volatility of a security by using the standard deviation of daily returns for the previous trailing year for such a security and selecting the securities with the lowest volatility. The Trust seeks total returns that may exceed the S&P 500 Index’s market level in certain risk-adjusted return metrics. The Sponsor, with the assistance of Guggenheim Partners Investment Management, LLC (“GPIM”), an affiliate of Guggenheim Partners, LLC, has selected the securities to be included in the Trust’s portfolio. As a result of this strategy, the Trust invests significantly in the consumer products sector and the industrials sector.

The Trust’s portfolio was constructed and the securities were selected seven business days prior to the Trust’s initial date of deposit (the “Security Selection Date”) using the Security Selection Rules outlined below.

Security Selection Rules:

In constructing the Trust’s portfolio, securities were selected based on the following rules-based criteria.

1. Initial Universe: Start with all securities included in the S&P 1500 Composite Index as of the Security Selection Date. Note that while the final selection step will only include S&P 500 Index names, this broad universe of large, mid, and small cap stocks is used for fundamental ranks in step 2. 

2. Rank on Fundamentals: Rank every company identified in the initial universe against other companies in the same sector, as defined by Global Industry Classification Standard, along each of the following reported financial metrics. Each ranking is determined as of the Security Selection Date using the most recently reported information and uses a scale of 1 through 10 (1 representing the highest scoring 10% in the sector and 10 representing the lowest scoring 10% in the sector):

• Return on assets as provided by S&P Compustat, and calculated as latest four quarters of reported operating income divided by the average of most recent reported total assets and year ago reported total assets.


• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the latest four quarters divided by enterprise value, as provided by S&P Compustat. Enterprise value is determined by adding the equity market capitalization as of the most recent closing price with the total outstanding long term and short term debt as determined by the most recently available balance sheet, and then subtracting any cash and short term investments, as determined by the most recently available balance sheet.


• Year-over-year growth in sales per share, as provided by S&P Compustat. Trailing year-over-year growth is the percentage change in sales per-share for the trailing 12 months versus the sales per-share from the prior 12 months. Sales per-share is the trailing 12 months of sales from the most recent trailing quarterly filings divided by the end of period reported count of common shares outstanding used to calculate basic earnings per share. Each financial metric will create a separate score so that every company will have three scores. These three scores are averaged together to create one composite score for a company. This composite score is used to rank the companies in the next step in order to determine the sub-universe of securities.

3. Define Sub-Universe:Reduce the initial universe of securities to a sub-universe that meets the following requirements, with each requirement being applied independently to the initial universe from the other requirements in this step, as of the Security Selection Date:

• Exclude the lowest ranked 25% of securities from the initial universe determined by the average of the three financial rankings described in step 2.


• Exclude the 20% of the initial universe with the lowest trailing 6 month total return.


• Exclude securities that are not members of the S&P 500 Index.


• Exclude all securities whose standard deviation of daily returns for the trailing year, as provided by FactSet, is above the median of that metric amongst all S&P 500 Index members.


• Exclude all securities whose standard deviation of trailing 36 monthly returns, as provided by FactSet, is above the median of that metric amongst all S&P 500 Index members or which do not have 36 months of trading history.


• Exclude all securities whose Beta, as provided by FactSet based on the trailing 2 years of weekly returns, is above the median of that metric amongst all S&P 500 Index members.


• Exclude securities with a market capitalization less than $1 billion, as provided by FactSet based on the closing price as of the Security Selection Date.


• Exclude securities with trading liquidity of less than $1 million, as determined by the median daily dollar trading volume (i.e., volume in shares multiplied by the closing price for the day, as provided by FactSet) during a 90 trading day look back from the Security Selection Date.


• Exclude securities with share price less than $5.


• Exclude securities that have a pending cash or stock merger and acquisition or bankruptcy announcement which will lead to delisting the security. Such events will be determined by reviewing the corporate action announcement data from Bloomberg where the announced date falls before the Security Selection Date.

4. Selection: Select from the sub-universe the 30 securities with the lowest volatility, as measured by standard deviation of daily returns as sourced from FactSet for the previous trailing year, and equally weight these securities as of Security Selection Date. Selected securities must adhere to the following portfolio limits:

• Maximum 25% weight in any sector (as defined by Global Industry Classification Standard).


• Maximum 10% weight in any industry (as defined by Global Industry Classification Standard).


• Maximum 20% weight in non-US countries (as defined by Russell index methodology for country categorization).

Once any of the investment limitations has been reached, additional securities of that kind will not be included in the Trust and the next lowest volatility security will be used.

Please note that due to the fluctuating nature of security prices, the weighting of an individual security, sector or industry in the Trust portfolio may change after the Security Selection Date.

INDEX DEFINITIONS: The S&P Composite 1500 Index combines three leading indices - S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600 - to form an investable benchmark of the U.S. equity market. Covering approximately 85% of the U.S. market capitalization, S&P Composite 1500 offers investors an index with the familiar characteristics of the S&P 500 but with broader market exposure. Indexes are unmanaged and it is not possible to invest directly in an index.

As with all investments, you may lose some or all of your investment in the Trust. No assurance can be given that the Trust’s investment objective will be achieved. The Trust also might not perform as well as you expect. This can happen for reasons such as these:

• Securities prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may fall over time. Market value fluctuates in response to various factors. These can include stock market movements, purchases or sales of securities by the Trust, government policies, litigation, and changes in interest rates, inflation, the financial condition of the securities’ issuer or even perceptions of the issuer. Units of the Trust are not deposits of any bank and are not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency.


• Securities selected according to this strategy may not perform as intended. The Trust is exposed to additional risk due to its policy of investing in accordance with an investment strategy. Although the Trust’s investment strategy is designed to achieve the Trust’s investment objective, the strategy may not prove to be successful. The investment decisions may not produce the intended results and there is no guarantee that the investment objective will be achieved.


• The Trust invests significantly in the consumer products sector. As a result, the factors that impact the consumer products sector will likely have a greater effect on this Trust than on a more broadly diversified Trust. General risks of companies in the consumer products sector include cyclicality of revenues and earnings, economic recession, currency fluctuations, changing consumer tastes, extensive competition, product liability litigation and increased government regulation. A weak economy and its effect on consumer spending would adversely affect companies in the consumer products sector.


• The Trust invests significantly in the industrials sector. As a result, the factors that impact the industrials sector will likely have a greater effect on this Trust than on a more broadly diversified Trust. Adverse developments in this sector may significantly affect the value of your units. Companies involved in the industrials sector must contend with the state of the economy, intense competitors, domestic and international politics, excess capacity and spending trends.


• The Trust invests in securities issued by mid-capitalization companies. These securities customarily involve more investment risk than securities of large-capitalization companies. Mid-capitalization companies may have limited product lines, markets or financial resources and may be more vulnerable to adverse general market or economic developments.


• Share prices or dividend rates on the securities in the Trust may decline during the life of the Trust. There is no guarantee that share prices of the securities in the Trust will not decline and that the issuers of the securities and, if declared, whether they will remain at current levels or increase over time.


• Inflation may lead to a decrease in the value of assets or income from investments.


• The Sponsor does not actively manage the portfolio. The Trust will generally hold, and may, when creating additional units, continue to buy, the same securities even though a security’s outlook, market value or yield may have changed.

See “Investment Risks” in Part A of the prospectus and “Risk Factors” in Part B of the prospectus for additional information.