Principal Investment Strategy
Under normal circumstances, the Trust will invest at least 80% of the value of its assets in dividend-paying common stocks of U.S. incorporated companies. The Trust seeks to provide dividend income that is greater than its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index. 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. The Sponsor and GPIM believe that companies that distribute significant dividends on a consistent basis generally demonstrate strong financial strength and positive performance relative to their peers. The U.S.-listed common stocks held by the Trust may include the common stocks of U.S. and non-U.S. companies. The Trust will invest in securities of companies with mid- and large market capitalization and may invest in real estate investment Trusts. As a result of this strategy, the
Trust invests significantly in the real estate sector.
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Selection Criteria
The Trust’s portfolio was constructed and the securities were selected on April 12, 2023 (the “Security Selection Date”) using the Security Selection Rules outlined below.
Security Selection Rules:
In constructing the Trust’s portfolio, 25 securities were selected based on the following fundamentally based quantitative criteria:
- Initial Universe: Begin with the universe of all stocks issued by large-, mid- and small-capitalization companies that trade on one of the three major U.S. exchanges and that are designated as a U.S. company as of the Security Selection Date. U.S. designation requires a company to have its primary listing on an eligible U.S. exchange, along with other factors such as
plurality of its assets and revenues.
- 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 (GICS). 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 or semi-annual filings, whichever is most current, 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.
- 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 six month total return.
- Exclude securities which do not have a policy of regular periodic cash dividends (quarterly, semiannual or yearly), or have omitted the most recent regular periodic cash dividend.
- Exclude securities with a market capitalization less than $200 million. Market capitalization is determined by the closing price as of the Security Selection Date.
- Exclude securities with a liquidity of less than $0.6 million. Liquidity is determined by the median trading volume in U.S. dollars looking back 90 days from the Security Selection Date (i.e., trading volume each day in shares multiplied by the closing price for the day as provided by FactSet Research Systems, Inc.).
- Exclude business development companies as identified by Bloomberg Industry Classification System sub-industry.
- Exclude mortgage real estate investment Trusts, as identified by GICS sub-industry.
- Exclude securities that have a pending cash or stock merger and acquisition or bankruptcy which will lead to delisting the security. Such events will be determined by reviewing the announced merger and acquisition data from Bloomberg.
- Exclude securities that are not one of the largest 500 companies of the initial universe by market capitalization (per FactSet).
- Selection: Select from the sub-universe the 25 top dividend yielding securities (with higher rank given to larger market capitalization when yields are equal) and equally weight these securities as of the Security Selection Date. Selected securities must adhere to following portfolio limits as of the Security Selection Date:
- Maximum 20% weight in any GICS sector.
- Minimum 80% in U.S. incorporated companies.
Once an investment limitation has been reached, additional securities of the type that would violate the limitation will not be included in the Trust and the next highest yielding security will be used.
Please note that due to the fluctuating nature of security prices, the weighting of an individual security or sector in the Trust portfolio may change after the Security Selection Date.
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Risks and Other Considerations
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. Changes in legal, political, regulatory, tax and economic conditions may cause fluctuations in markets and securities prices, which could negatively impact the value of the Trust. Additionally, events such war, terrorism, natural and environmental disasters and the spread of infectious illnesses or other public health emergencies may adversely affect the economy, various markets and issuers. An outbreak of a novel form of coronavirus disease (“COVID-19”) was first detected in December 2019 and rapidly spread around the globe leading the World Health Organization to declare the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March 2020 and resulting in major disruptions to economies and markets around the world. The complete economic impacts of COVID-19 are not yet fully known. The COVID-19 pandemic, or any future public health crisis, is impossible to predict and could result in adverse market conditions which may negatively impact the performance of the Trust and the Trust's ability to achieve its investment objectives. 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.
- 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 securities in the Trust will not decline and that the issuers of the securities will declare dividends in the future and, if declared, whether they will remain at current levels or increase over time.
- 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 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.
- The trust invests significantly in the real estate sector and invests in real estate investment trusts ("REITs"). As a result, the factors that impact the real estate sector will likely have a greater effect on this trust than on a more broadly diversified trust. REITs may concentrate their investments in specific geographic areas or in specific property types, such as, hotels, shopping malls, residential complexes and office buildings. The value of the REITs and other real estate securities and the ability of such securities to distribute income may be adversely affected by several factors, including: rising interest rates; changes in the global and local economic climate and real estate conditions; perceptions of prospective tenants of the safety, convenience and attractiveness of the properties; the ability of the owner to provide adequate management, maintenance and insurance; the cost of complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act; increased competition from new properties; the impact of present or future environmental legislation and compliance with environmental laws; changes in real estate taxes and other operating expenses; adverse changes in governmental rules and fiscal policies; adverse changes in zoning laws; declines in the value of real estate; the downturn in the subprime mortgage lending market and the real estate markets in the United States; and other factors beyond the control of the issuer of the security. Additionally, current negative economic impacts caused by COVID-19 have resulted in a number of businesses and individuals struggling to pay their rents, which has created cash flow difficulties for many landlords. Furthermore, demand for leased commercial space has weakened. REITs provide space to many industries that have been directly impacted by the spread of COVID-19 and may be negatively impacted by these current conditions.
- The Trust invests in U.S.-listed foreign securities. The Trust’s investments in foreign securities present additional risk. Securities of foreign issuers present risks beyond those of domestic securities. More specifically, foreign risk is the risk that foreign securities will be more volatile than U.S. securities due to such factors as adverse economic, currency, political, social or regulatory developments in a country, including government seizure of assets, excessive taxation, limitations on the use or transfer of assets, the lack of liquidity or regulatory controls with respect to certain industries or differing legal and/or accounting standards.
- The Trust may be susceptible to potential risks through breaches in cybersecurity. A breach in cybersecurity refers to both intentional and unintentional events that may cause the Trust to lose proprietary information, suffer data corruption or lose operational capacity. Such events could cause the Sponsor of the Trust to incur regulatory penalties, reputational damage, additional compliance costs associated with corrective measures and/or financial loss. In addition, cybersecurity breaches of the Trust’s third-party service providers, or issuers in which the Trust invests, can also subject the Trust to many of the same risks associated with direct cybersecurity breaches.
- The Trust is subject to risks arising from various operational factors and their service providers. Operational factors include, but not limited to, human error, processing and communication errors, errors of the Trust’s service providers, counterparties or other third-parties, failed or inadequate processes and technology or systems failures. Additionally, the Trust may be subject to the risk that a service provider may not be willing or able to perform their duties as required or contemplated by their agreements with the Trust. Although the Trust seeks to reduce these operational risks through controls and procedures, there is no way to completely protect against such risks.
- 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.
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