TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio
Data updated: 2026-08-24
C000112453 — TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio. United States Multi-Cap / All-Cap Blend / Core Equity. Holdings, fees, performance and SEC filings.
C000112453 Fund Overview
TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio is a US ETF managed by Northern Lights Variable Trust, categorised as United States Multi-Cap / All-Cap Blend / Core Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.
- Type: US ETF
- Manager: Northern Lights Variable Trust
- Category: United States Multi-Cap / All-Cap Blend / Core Equity
- Assets under management: $62.02M
- 1-year return: 13.5%
- SEC CIK: 0001352621
- SEC series ID: S000031507
- Share class ID: C000112453
C000112453 Investment Objective and Strategy
TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by Northern Lights Variable Trust.
Investment objective
The Portfolio seeks to provide income and capital appreciation with less volatility than the fixed income and equity markets as a whole.
Principal investment strategy
The Portfolio employs a fund-of-funds structure that invests, under normal market conditions, at least 80% of its assets in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The Portfolio also employs exchange-traded futures contracts to hedge market risk and reduce return volatility. The ETFs included in the Portfolio invest primarily in securities representing one of the following asset classes: Government Fixed Income Securities Corporate Fixed Income Securities Common and Preferred Stocks Real Estate-Related Securities (REITs) Natural Resource-Related Securities The Portfolio restricts investment in fixed income ETFs to those with an average maturity of 20 years or less and invests primarily in ETFs with average portfolio credit quality of investment grade. Maturity is the time between when a fixed income security is issued and when it matures.
No more than 15% of the portfolio will be allocated to fixed income ETFs with an average portfolio credit quality below investment grade (commonly referred to as junk bond credit quality). The Portfolio defines investment grade credit quality as Baa3 or higher by Moodys Investors Service or BBB- or higher by Standard and Poors Rating Group. The Portfolio invests in ETFs that may invest in securities without restriction as to underlying issuer country (including foreign and emerging countries), capitalization or currency. The Portfolio considers emerging market countries to be those represented in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The Portfolio invests in REIT ETFs and natural resource ETFs without restriction as to underlying issuer capitalization. The adviser seeks to achieve the Portfolios investment objectives by allocating assets and selecting individual ETFs using the advisers TOPS (The Optimized Portfolio System) methodology.
The TOPS methodology utilizes multiple asset classes in an effort to enhance performance and/or reduce risk (as measured by return volatility). Under normal market conditions, the Portfolio invests at least 25% of its assets in equity ETFs and at least 25% of its assets in fixed income ETFs. However, to achieve the Portfolios income aspect of the Portfolios investment objectives, the adviser allocates approximately 50% of Portfolio assets to fixed income ETFs. To achieve the capital appreciation aspect of the Portfolios investment objectives, the adviser allocates approximately 50% of Portfolio assets to a combination of equity ETFs, equity derivatives, REIT ETFs and natural resource ETFs. Furthermore, the adviser selects some equity ETFs that are composed of value stocks. The adviser expects value stocks, those with a lower-than-average price-to-earnings ratio, to have returns that are less volatile than the equity market as a whole.
The adviser selects individual ETFs that it believes are reasonably representative of an asset class and have relatively low expenses and/or relatively high returns when compared to a peer group of ETFs. The adviser sells individual ETFs to rebalance asset allocation or to purchase a substitute ETF with a higher expected return or lower risk profile or for any other reason. The adviser seeks to manage return volatility by employing a sub-adviser to execute a portfolio managed risk strategy. The sub-advisers managed risk strategy consists of using hedge instruments (exchange-traded futures contracts) to reduce the downside risk of the majority of the Portfolios securities. The sub-adviser may use: equity futures contracts, treasury futures contracts, currency futures contracts, and other hedge instruments judged by the sub-adviser to be necessary to achieve the goals of the managed risk strategy.
The sub-adviser may also buy or sell futures contracts based on one or more market indices in an attempt to maintain the Portfolios volatility at the targeted level in an environment in which the sub-adviser expects market volatility to decrease or increase, respectively. The sub-adviser selects individual futures contracts that it believes will have prices that are highly correlated (negatively) to the Portfolios ETF positions. The sub-adviser adjusts futures positions to manage overall net Portfolio risk exposure, in an attempt to stabilize the volatility of the Portfolio around a target level set by the adviser and to reduce the potential for portfolio losses during periods of significant and sustained market decline. The sub-adviser regularly monitors and forecasts volatility in the markets utilizing a proprietary model, and adjusts the Portfolios futures positions in response to specific changes in the market and in the Portfolio.
In addition, the sub-adviser will monitor liquidity levels of relevant futures contracts and transparency provided by exchanges as the counterparties in hedging transactions. Following market declines, a downside rebalancing strategy will be used to decrease the amount of futures contracts used to hedge the Portfolio. The sub-adviser also adjusts futures positions to realign individual hedges when the adviser rebalances the Portfolios asset allocation profile. Depending on market conditions, scenarios may occur where the Portfolio has no positions in any futures contracts. The Portfolio and the adviser have received a SEC order that allows the adviser to hire a new sub-adviser or sub-advisers without shareholder approval. There is no guarantee that the Portfolio will meet its investment objectives.
Who Should Invest in the Portfolio? The adviser believes the Portfolio is appropriate for investors with short-term to intermediate-term investment horizons who seek capital preservation as well as the opportunity for modest income and modest capital appreciation.
C000112453 Holdings
Top 10 holdings of TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio by percentage of net assets, from the fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Holding | % of net assets |
|---|---|
| Short-Term Investments Trust | 11.50% |
| Vanguard Malvern Funds | 10.77% |
| Vanguard Index Funds | 8.16% |
| Vanguard Tax-Managed Funds | 8.12% |
| Spdr Series Trust | 8.08% |
| Ishares Trust | 7.15% |
| Spdr Series Trust | 6.29% |
| Spdr Series Trust | 4.53% |
| Vanguard Scottsdale Funds | 4.48% |
| Spdr Series Trust | 3.62% |
C000112453 Portfolio Allocation
Asset-class allocation of TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio by percentage of net assets, from the latest SEC N-PORT filing.
| Asset class | Allocation |
|---|---|
| Equity | 88.2% |
| Cash & Equivalents | 11.5% |
| Derivatives | 0.1% |
C000112453 Performance
Total returns for C000112453 (as of 2026-10-01), from SEC filings.
| Period | Total return |
|---|---|
| YTD | 6.9% |
| 1 year | 13.5% |
| 3 years (annualised) | 8.8% |
| 5 years (annualised) | 3.8% |
C000112453 Risk Information
Risk metrics for C000112453, derived from monthly returns in SEC filings.
- 1-year volatility (annualised): 6.5%
C000112453 Costs and Fees
C000112453 costs about $85 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.
- Net expense ratio: 0.85%
- Gross expense ratio: 0.85%
- Portfolio turnover: 10%
- Brokerage commissions: 0.36 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)
C000112453 Cashflows
Over the 12 months to 2026-06, TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio had net outflows of $1.46M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.
| Month | Net flow |
|---|---|
| 2026-06 | −$252.60K |
| 2026-05 | −$521.17K |
| 2026-04 | $337.53K |
| 2026-03 | $833.98K |
| 2026-02 | −$324.15K |
| 2026-01 | −$363.22K |
C000112453 Debt Constituents
No individual debt constituents are reported in TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio's latest SEC N-PORT filing.
C000112453 Prospectus and SEC Filings
Official TOPS Managed Risk Balanced ETF Portfolio filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2026-04-21
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2025-04-22
- Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2024-04-22
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-08-24
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-05-28
- Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2026-02-26
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2026-03-16
- Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2025-03-17
Related Funds
Other United States Multi-Cap / All-Cap Blend / Core 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.