The Fund normally invests at least 80% of its assets (net assets plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in U.S. equity securities. The Fund primarily invests in equity securities of well-established U.S. companies, primarily those with large capitalizations, that are in the Russell 1000® Index (the “Index”) or have market capitalizations that are similar to companies in the Index (which ranged from $624 million to $2.252 trillion as of December 31, 2020). The Fund may also invest in equity securities of companies with market capitalizations outside of the range of the Index. Generally, an issuer of a security is considered to be U.S. or foreign based on the issuer's "country of risk," as determined by a third-party service provider such as Bloomberg.

The Fund may hold long and short positions. The Fund generally will hold long positions, either directly or through equity-related derivatives (such as futures, options, and total return swaps), that may total up to 140% of the Fund's net assets, and short positions, either directly or through equity-related derivatives (such as futures, options, and total return swaps), that may total up to 40% of the Fund's net assets. The proceeds from the short sales may be used to purchase all or a portion of the additional long positions. The long and short positions held by the Fund may vary over time as market opportunities develop. The Fund may invest in swaps, futures, forwards and options. The Fund may also invest in real estate investment trusts (“REITs”). REITs are pooled investment vehicles that invest primarily in either real estate or real estate-related loans.

MacKay Shields LLC, the Fund’s Subadvisor, believes that the use of both long and short positions better enables the Fund to seek to produce returns that are in excess of the Index. The Fund takes long positions primarily in securities that the Fund has identified as attractive and short positions in securities that the Fund has identified as overvalued or poised for underperformance.

Investment Process: Using an objective, disciplined and broadly-applied process, the Subadvisor selects securities that it believes have the most potential to appreciate, while seeking to limit exposure to risk. The Subadvisor seeks to control the Fund's exposure to risk through, among other things, sector and industry constraints. These constraints may limit the Fund’s ability to overweight or underweight particular sectors or industries relative to the Index. The Subadvisor will further seek to reduce risk by constructing a broadly-diversified portfolio of securities issued by a large number of companies, across sectors and industries using quantitative analysis to identify undervalued and overvalued securities that the Subadvisor believes have a high probability of providing total returns greater than the Index. The Subadvisor uses a quantitative model that is designed to evaluate individual issuers and securities across multiple criteria, including valuation, momentum and market sentiment. The Subadvisor also conducts a qualitative review of the results of the quantitative analysis. The Subadvisor may give consideration to certain environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) criteria when evaluating an investment opportunity. In certain cases, the Subadvisor may deviate from positions or weightings suggested by the quantitative analysis to account for events and conditions that may not be quantifiable by the analysis, such as company-specific and market events. The Subadvisor evaluates the quantitative model and, from time to time, may adjust the metrics and data underlying its quantitative analysis or model for a variety reasons, including, without limitation, to account for changing market, financial or economic conditions.

Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis, the Fund takes long positions in, or overweights relative to the Index, equity securities that the Subadvisor believes have a high probability of providing a total return greater than the Index. Also, the Fund will underweight or sell short (or obtain short exposure to) securities that it believes are likely to underperform. This means that the Fund may sell a security that it does not own, which it may do, for example, when the Subadvisor believes that the value of the security will decline.

Short sales or short exposure are intended to allow the Fund to earn returns on securities that it believes will depreciate in value and also are intended to allow the Fund to maintain additional long positions while keeping the Fund’s net exposure to the market between 80% and 100%, similar to that of a “long only” strategy.

The Fund may sell a security or reduce or eliminate a short position if, among other reasons, it believes the security will no longer contribute to meeting the investment objective of the Fund, if better opportunities are identified, or if it determines the initial investment expectations are not being met.