Investment objective & strategy
As of April 24, 2025 · prospectusObjective. The investment objective of the Fund is to seek to track as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Morningstar US Small-Mid Cap Moat Focus Index ? .
Strategy. The Fund seeks to invest under normal circumstances at least 80% of its assets (net assets plus the amount of any borrowings made for investment purposes) in the securities in the Morningstar US Small-Mid Cap Moat Focus Index ? (Index). The Index is comprised of small- and medium-capitalization companies as defined by Morningstar, Inc. (the Index provider), that the Index Provider determines have sustainable competitive advantages based on a proprietary methodology that considers quantitative and qualitative factors (wide and narrow moat companies). The quantitative factors used by the Index Provider to identify competitive advantages currently include historical and projected returns on invested capital relative to cost of capital. The qualitative factors used by the Index Provider to identify competitive advantages … The Fund seeks to invest under normal circumstances at least 80% of its assets (net assets plus the amount of any borrowings made for investment purposes) in the securities in the Morningstar US Small-Mid Cap Moat Focus Index ? (Index). The Index is comprised of small- and medium-capitalization companies as defined by Morningstar, Inc. (the Index provider), that the Index Provider determines have sustainable competitive advantages based on a proprietary methodology that considers quantitative and qualitative factors (wide and narrow moat companies). The quantitative factors used by the Index Provider to identify competitive advantages currently include historical and projected returns on invested capital relative to cost of capital. The qualitative factors used by the Index Provider to identify competitive advantages currently include customer switching cost (i.e., the costs of customers switching to competitors), internal cost advantages, intangible assets (e.g., intellectual property and brands), network effects (i.e., whether products or services become more valuable as the number of customers grows) and efficient scale (i.e., whether the company effectively serves a limited market that potential rivals have little incentive to enter into). Wide moat companies are those that the Index Provider believes will maintain their competitive advantage(s) for at least 20 years. Narrow moat companies are those that the Index Provider believes will maintain their competitive advantage(s) for at least 10 years. Wide and narrow moat companies are selected from the universe of companies represented in the Morningstar US Small-Mid Cap Index ? (the Parent Index), a broad market index representing small- and medium-capitalization U.S. companies. For purposes of the Parent Index, the Index Provider considers those companies in the bottom 70%-90% of total U.S. market cap to be medium-capitalization companies and those companies in the bottom 90%-97% to be small-capitalization companies. The Index targets a select group of equity securities of wide and narrow moat companies, which are those companies that, according to the Index Providers equity research team (Morningstar Research), are attractively priced based on predefined factors as of each index review. A momentum signal is used to exclude 20% of the wide and narrow moat stocks in the Parent Index with the worst 12-month momentum based on the 12-month total return of each stock. Out of the companies in the Parent Index that Morningstar Research determines are wide or narrow moat companies and display 12-month momentum in the top 80%, Morningstar Research selects companies to be included in the Index as determined by the ratio of the issuers common stock price to Morningstar Researchs estimate of fair value. Morningstar Research s fair value estimates are calculated using standardized, proprietary valuation models. As of December 31, 2024, the Index included 109 securities of companies with a full market capitalization range of between approximately $2.26 billion and $67.91 billion and a weighted average full market capitalization of $20.22 billion. These amounts are subject to change. The Index is divided into two sub-portfolios that are reconstituted and rebalanced semi-annually on alternating quarters. Within each sub-portfolio, an equal weight is assigned to all constituents at rebalancing; constituent weights drift due to market movement until the next rebalance when they are reset to an equal weight. The Fund may invest in financial futures, a type of derivative that may be used to obtain exposure to a variety of underlying assets, to provide liquidity for cash flows, to hedge dividend accruals or for other purposes that facilitate meeting the Funds objective. The Funds use of financial futures is intended to assist in seeking to replicate the investment performance of the Index. The Fund employs a passive investment approach, called indexing, which attempts to replicate the investment performance of the Index through representative sampling. The Fund does not employ traditional methods of active investment management, which involves the buying and selling of securities based upon security analysis. The Fund attempts to replicate the Index by investing all or substantially all of its assets in the stocks that make up the Index. The Fund will concentrate its investments in an industry or group of industries to the extent the Index that the Fund is designed to track is also concentrated. As of December 31, 2024, the consumer discretionary sector represented a significant portion of the Index. Although the Fund is diversified, the Fund may, at times, be invested in a non-diversified manner to the extent that the Index is also invested in a non-diversified manner.
Top holdings
As of March 31, 2026 · N-PORT| Security | Ticker | Value | % of fund |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEVON ENERGY CORP | — | $1.19M | 1.65% |
| AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES INC | — | $1.18M | 1.65% |
| SLB LTD | — | $1.17M | 1.63% |
| ALBEMARLE CORP | — | $1.17M | 1.62% |
| CORTEVA INC | — | $1.13M | 1.57% |
| ROYALTY PHARMA PLC | — | $1.10M | 1.53% |
| DUPONT DE NEMOURS INC | — | $1.03M | 1.44% |
| MARVELL TECHNOLOGY INC | — | $1.02M | 1.42% |
| MONDELEZ INTL INC | — | $988.41K | 1.38% |
| THE CIGNA GROUP | — | $969.90K | 1.35% |
Portfolio moves
Dec 31, 2025 → Mar 31, 2026How many positions this fund opened, exited, grew, trimmed, or left unchanged between its two most recent N-PORT snapshots — net changes between point-in-time reports, not a trade log.
Similar funds
Funds whose portfolios most overlap this one, by weight| Fund | Overlap | Net exp. |
|---|---|---|
| VanEck Morningstar SMID Moat ETF · SMOT | 99% | 0.49% |
| JNL/Morningstar Wide Moat Index Fund | 23% | 0.45% |
| VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat ETF · MOAT | 22% | 0.46% |
Advisers
| Firm | Role |
|---|---|
| Mellon Investments Corporation | Sub-adviser |
| Jackson National Asset Management, LLC | Adviser |
Footnotes
- Net assets and holdings count as of March 31, 2026, from the fund's N-PORT filing.
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