First Investors Hedged U.S. Equity Opportunities Fund

C000171867 Fund Overview

First Investors Hedged U.S. Equity Opportunities Fund is a US mutual fund managed by First Investors Equity Funds, categorised as Emerging Markets Blend / Core Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.

• Type: US mutual fund
• Manager: First Investors Equity Funds
• Category: Emerging Markets Blend / Core Equity
• Assets under management: $123.81M
• SEC CIK: 0000886048
• SEC series ID: S000054700
• Share class ID: C000171867

C000171867 Investment Objective and Strategy

First Investors Hedged U.S. Equity Opportunities Fund describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by First Investors Equity Funds.

Investment objective

Total return and, secondarily, capital preservation.

Principal investment strategy

The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of common stocks of any market capitalization while also investing in derivatives to help manage investment risk. Under normal circumstances, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in equity securities of U.S. issuers and investments that provide exposure to such securities, including exchange-traded funds. The Fund defines U.S. issuers to include: (1) issuers that are incorporated or headquartered in the U.S.; (2) issuers whose securities are principally traded in the U.S.; (3) issuers with a majority of their business operations or assets in the U.S.; and (4) issuers who derive a majority of their revenues or profits from the U.S. To a lesser extent, the Fund also may invest in the equity securities of foreign issuers, including emerging market issuers.

The portfolio management team also seeks to manage the Funds market risk and the risk of loss from significant events by investing in derivatives. The Fund may engage in active and frequent trading which may result in high portfolio turnover. Wellington Management Company LLP, the Funds subadviser (Wellington Management), allocates the Funds equity investments across a range of equity market investment styles managed by Wellington Management that are focused on total return or growth of capital (underlying styles) to create a portfolio with broad market exposure. Wellington Management allocates the Funds assets among the underlying styles to create a portfolio that represents a wide range of investment philosophies, companies, industries and market capitalizations. The underlying styles make investments based on their specific investment philosophies, for example, value, growth, high quality, or low volatility.

The portfolio management team seeks to combine complementary underlying styles, monitoring the Funds risk profile and strategically rebalancing the portfolio. In selecting different underlying styles, Wellington Management considers, among other things, the relative level of an underlying styles active share (i.e., the extent to which the underlying styles holdings diverge from the underlying styles benchmark index), and the active share of the Fund (i.e., the extent to which the Funds holdings diverge from the Funds benchmark index). For each underlying style, Wellington Management has a distinct investment philosophy and analytical process to identify specific securities for purchase or sale based on internal proprietary research. The underlying styles generally invest in equity securities, but may also use derivatives for investment purposes.

The underlying styles do not use derivatives solely for the purpose of creating leverage. Wellington Managements investment personnel for each underlying style are responsible for selecting the Funds investments within their specific underlying styles. In selecting prospective investments for each underlying style, Wellington Management may employ qualitative and quantitative portfolio management techniques. In addition to allocating the Funds assets to the underlying styles, Wellington Management seeks to manage the Funds aggregate investment risks, specifically, the risk of loss associated with markets generally as well as the risk of loss from significant events, by investing in derivatives. This strategy principally involves the purchase and sale of put and call options on indices and the purchase and sale of index futures contracts.

The use of derivatives is intended to hedge overall risks to the Fund, but not the risks associated with single or groups of investments or single or groups of underlying styles. As a result, Wellington Managements derivatives strategy may protect the Fund from losses associated with a general market decline, but would not protect the Fund from losses resulting from a single investment or group of investments held by the Fund.

C000171867 Costs and Fees

C000171867 costs about $139 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.

• Net expense ratio: 1.39%
• Gross expense ratio: 1.39%
• Portfolio turnover: 56%
• Brokerage commissions: 4.65 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)

C000171867 Cashflows

Over the 12 months to 2019-09, First Investors Hedged U.S. Equity Opportunities Fund had net outflows of $194.56M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.

C000171867 Debt Constituents

No individual debt constituents are reported in First Investors Hedged U.S. Equity Opportunities Fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.

C000171867 Prospectus and SEC Filings

Official First Investors Hedged U.S. Equity Opportunities Fund filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.

• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2019-02-22
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2018-02-20
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2017-02-22
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2019-11-29
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2019-12-13
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2018-12-14

Related Funds

Other Emerging Markets Blend / Core Equity funds tracked on ABC INVEST:

• Strategic Advisers Fidelity Emerging Markets Fund (FGOMX)
• iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY)
• Strategic Advisers Emerging Markets Fund (FSAMX)
• iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (EWT)
• iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ)

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.