Strategy. The Diversified Fixed Income Portfolio seeks its investment objective by investing directly or through other funds managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors LP (the Advisor) (the Underlying Funds) in a universe of U.S. and foreign debt securities, including inflation-protected securities. The Portfolio and/or its Underlying Funds invest in obligations issued or guaranteed by the U.S. and foreign governments, their agencies and instrumentalities, corporate debt obligations, bank obligations, commercial paper, repurchase agreements, money market funds, securities of domestic or foreign issuers denominated in U.S. dollars but not trading in the United States, and obligations of supranational organizations. The inflation-protected securities in which the Portfolio and/or its Underlying Funds invest may include Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. As of the date of this Prospectus, the … Show more… The Diversified Fixed Income Portfolio seeks its investment objective by investing directly or through other funds managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors LP (the Advisor) (the Underlying Funds) in a universe of U.S. and foreign debt securities, including inflation-protected securities. The Portfolio and/or its Underlying Funds invest in obligations issued or guaranteed by the U.S. and foreign governments, their agencies and instrumentalities, corporate debt obligations, bank obligations, commercial paper, repurchase agreements, money market funds, securities of domestic or foreign issuers denominated in U.S. dollars but not trading in the United States, and obligations of supranational organizations. The inflation-protected securities in which the Portfolio and/or its Underlying Funds invest may include Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. As of the date of this Prospectus, the Portfolio invests its assets in the DFA Two-Year Global Fixed Income Portfolio and DFA Intermediate Government Fixed Income Portfolio and/or other Underlying Funds, but the Portfolio also invests a substantial portion of its assets directly. Depending on the credit and term spreads in the current yield curves, the Diversified Fixed Income Portfolio will adjust its investment allocations to credit and maturity, within the eligible universe of investments held directly or through Underlying Funds. The fixed income securities in which the Portfolio invests will be considered investment grade at the time of purchase (e.g., rated AAA to BBB- by S&P Global Ratings (S&P) or Fitch Ratings Ltd. (Fitch) or Aaa to Baa3 by Moodys Ratings (Moodys). Generally, the Portfolio will purchase debt securities that mature within twenty years from the date of settlement. The Portfolio will ordinarily have a weighted average effective maturity, based on market values, between two and seven years. The effective maturity adjusts the stated final maturity of a fixed income security for an actual or expected event such as a call, put, tender, mandatory early redemption, pre-refunding, coupon or interest rate reset, or other similar event. As a non-fundamental policy, under normal circumstances, the Diversified Fixed Income Portfolio will invest directly, or indirectly through its investment in the Underlying Funds, at least 80% of its net assets in fixed income securities. In addition, the Portfolio and each Underlying Fund are authorized to invest more than 25% of its total assets in U.S. Treasury bonds, bills and notes, and obligations of federal agencies and instrumentalities. Because many of the Diversified Fixed Income Portfolios and certain Underlying Funds investments may be denominated in foreign currencies, the Portfolio and such Underlying Funds may also enter into foreign currency forward contracts to attempt to protect against uncertainty in the level of future foreign currency rates, to hedge against fluctuations in currency exchange rates or to transfer balances from one currency to another. The Portfolio and certain Underlying Funds may also purchase or sell futures contracts and options on futures contracts for securities and indices, to hedge their currency exposure or to increase or decrease market exposure based on actual or expected cash inflows to or outflows from the Portfolio or Underlying Fund. The Diversified Fixed Income Portfolio and the Underlying Funds may lend their portfolio securities to generate additional income. Show less