U.S. Defensive Equity Fund
Data updated: 2026-09-25
C000004312 — U.S. Defensive Equity Fund. Global (incl. US) Large Cap Value Equity · $271.25M AUM. Holdings, fees, performance and SEC filings.
C000004312 Fund Overview
U.S. Defensive Equity Fund is a US mutual fund managed by Russell Investment CO, categorised as Global (incl. US) Large Cap Value Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.
- Type: US mutual fund
- Manager: Russell Investment CO
- Category: Global (incl. US) Large Cap Value Equity
- Assets under management: $271.25M
- SEC CIK: 0000351601
- SEC series ID: S000001591
- Share class ID: C000004312
C000004312 Investment Objective and Strategy
U.S. Defensive Equity Fund describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by Russell Investment CO.
Investment objective
The Fund seeks to provide long term capital growth.
Principal investment strategy
The Fund has a non-fundamental policy to invest, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the value of its net assets plus borrowings for investment purposes in equity securities economically tied to the U.S. The Fund invests principally in common stocks of large and medium capitalization U.S. companies. The Fund defines large and medium capitalization stocks as stocks of those companies represented by the Russell 1000 Index or within the capitalization range of the Russell 1000 Index as measured at its most recent reconstitution. The Fund employs a defensive style of investing. Defensive style emphasizes investments in equity securities of companies believed to have lower than average stock price volatility (i.e., the amount by which a stocks price rises and falls over short-term time periods) and lower than average earnings variability.
The Fund's investment strategy is designed to provide returns that are less volatile than those of the broad U.S. large and medium capitalization equity market. The Fund may employ long-short equity strategies pursuant to which it sells securities short. Russell Investment Management, LLC (RIM) provides or oversees the provision of all investment advisory and portfolio management services for the Fund. The Funds assets are managed by RIM and multiple money managers unaffiliated with RIM pursuant to a multi-manager approach. The Fund employs discretionary and non-discretionary money managers. The Funds discretionary money managers select the individual portfolio instruments for the assets assigned to them. The Funds non-discretionary money managers provide a model portfolio to RIM representing their investment recommendations, based upon which RIM purchases and sells securities for the Fund.
RIM manages Fund assets not allocated to money manager strategies and utilizes quantitative and/or rules-based processes and qualitative analysis to assess Fund characteristics and invest in securities and instruments which provide the desired exposures. RIM may use strategies based on indexes. RIM also manages the portion of Fund assets for which the Fund's non-discretionary money managers provide model portfolios and the Fund's cash balances. The Fund usually, but not always, pursues a strategy to be fully invested by exposing all or a portion of its cash to the performance of appropriate markets by purchasing equity securities and/or derivatives, which typically include index futures contracts. The Fund may invest in derivative instruments and may use derivatives to take both long and short positions.
Please refer to the Investment Objective and Investment Strategies section in the Fund's Prospectus for further information.
C000004312 Holdings
Top 10 holdings of U.S. Defensive Equity Fund by percentage of net assets, from the fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Holding | % of net assets |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Corp | 4.06% |
| Russell Investments Trust Company Commingled Employee Benefit Funds Trust-U.S. Cash Management Fund | 3.73% |
| NVIDIA Corp | 3.26% |
| Apple Inc | 2.87% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd | 2.01% |
| ASML Holding NV | 1.55% |
| Visa Inc | 1.29% |
| Eli Lilly & Co | 1.27% |
| Mastercard Inc | 1.15% |
| Broadcom Inc | 1.14% |
C000004312 Portfolio Allocation
Asset-class allocation of U.S. Defensive Equity Fund by percentage of net assets, from the latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Asset class | Allocation |
|---|---|
| Equity | 94.7% |
| Cash & Equivalents | 3.7% |
C000004312 Costs and Fees
C000004312 costs about $141 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.
- Net expense ratio: 1.41%
- Gross expense ratio: 1.44%
- Portfolio turnover: 75%
- Brokerage commissions: 1.22 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)
C000004312 Cashflows
Over the 12 months to 2026-04, U.S. Defensive Equity Fund had net inflows of $94.81M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.
| Month | Net flow |
|---|---|
| 2026-04 | −$6.40M |
| 2026-03 | $72.55M |
| 2026-02 | −$1.49M |
| 2026-01 | −$3.80M |
| 2025-12 | $51.99M |
| 2025-11 | −$1.85M |
C000004312 Debt Constituents
No individual debt constituents are reported in U.S. Defensive Equity Fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
C000004312 Prospectus and SEC Filings
Official U.S. Defensive Equity Fund filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2026-02-27
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2025-02-28
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2024-02-28
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-09-25
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-06-22
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-03-26
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2026-01-09
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2025-01-10
Related Funds
Other Global (incl. US) Large Cap Value Equity funds tracked on ABC INVEST:
Data Sources
ABC INVEST compiles this page from public filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through EDGAR: portfolio holdings and monthly cashflows from Form N-PORT, expenses and returns from fund prospectuses (Form 485BPOS) and the SEC DERA Risk/Return Summary data sets, annual data from Form N-CEN, and shareholder reports from Form N-CSR.