Portfolio Turnover
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher
portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in Annual Fund Operating
Expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 0% of the average value of its portfolio. However, this portfolio turnover rate is calculated without regard to cash instruments or derivative transactions. If the
Fund's extensive use of derivatives was reflected, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate would be significantly higher.
Principal Investment Strategy
The Index is provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices (the “Index Provider”)
and includes domestic companies from the energy sector which includes the following industries: oil, gas and consumable fuels; and energy equipment and services. The Index is one of eleven Select
Sector Indexes developed and maintained in accordance with the following criteria: (1) each of the component securities in the Index is a constituent of the S&P 500® Index and (2) the Index is calculated by the Index Provider based on a proprietary “modified market capitalization”
methodology which means that modifications may be made to the market capitalization weights of single stock concentrations in order to conform to the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as
amended.
As of December 29, 2023, the Index had
23 constituents, which had a median total market capitalization of $42.3
billion, total market capitalizations ranging from $11 billion to $400.5
billion and were concentrated in the energy sector. The Index is rebalanced quarterly.
The components of the Index and the percentages represented by various sectors in the Index may change over time. The Fund will
concentrate its investment in a particular industry or group of industries (i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets in investments that provide inverse leveraged exposure to a particular
industry or group of industries) to approximately the same extent as the Index is so concentrated.
The Fund, under normal circumstances, invests at least 80% of the Fund’s net assets (plus borrowing for investment purposes) in financial
instruments, including swap agreements, futures contracts, or short positions, that, in combination, provide 2X daily inverse (opposite) or short exposure to the Index or to exchange-traded
funds ("ETFs") that track the Index, consistent with the Fund’s investment objective. The financial instruments in which the Fund most commonly invests are swap agreements and
futures agreements which are intended to produce economically inverse leveraged investment
results.
The Fund may also gain inverse leveraged exposure by investing in a combination of
financial instruments, such as swap agreements or futures agreements that provide short exposure to the Index, to a representative sample of the securities in the Index
that has aggregate characteristics similar to those of the Index or to an ETF that tracks the same Index or a substantially similar index, or the Fund may
short securities of the
Index, or short an ETF that tracks the same Index or a substantially similar index. The Fund invests in derivatives as a substitute for directly shorting securities in order to gain inverse
leveraged exposure to the Index or its components. When the Fund shorts securities, including the securities of another investment company, it borrows shares of that security or
investment company, which it then sells. The Fund closes out a short sale by purchasing the security that it has sold short and returning that security to the entity that lent the
security. On a day-to-day basis, the Fund is expected to hold money market funds, deposit accounts with institutions with high quality credit ratings (i.e. investment grade or higher), and/or short-term debt instruments that have terms-to-maturity of less than 397 days and exhibit high quality
credit profiles, including U.S. government securities and repurchase agreements.
The Fund seeks to remain fully invested at all times consistent with its stated inverse leveraged investment objective, but may not always have inverse
exposure to all of the securities in the Index, or its weighting of inverse exposure to securities or industries may be different from that of the Index. In addition, the Fund may have
inverse exposure to securities, ETFs or financial instruments not included in the Index.
The Fund will attempt to achieve its investment objective without regard to overall
market movement or the increase or decrease of the value of the securities in the Index. At the close of the markets each trading day, Rafferty rebalances the Fund’s
portfolio so that its exposure to the Index is consistent with the Fund’s inverse leveraged investment objective. For example, if the Index has fallen on a given day, net assets of the Fund
should rise, meaning that the Fund’s exposure will need to be increased. Conversely, if the Index has risen on a given day, net assets of the Fund should fall, meaning the
Fund’s exposure will need to be reduced and that a shareholder should lose money, a result that is the opposite of traditional index tracking ETFs. This re-positioning strategy
may result in high portfolio turnover. The terms “daily,” “day,” and “trading day,” refer to the period from the close of the markets on one trading day to the close of the markets on the next trading
day.
The Fund is “non-diversified,” meaning that a relatively high percentage of
its assets may be invested in a limited number of issuers of securities. Additionally, the Fund’s investment objective is not a fundamental policy and may be changed by the Fund’s Board of
Trustees without shareholder approval.
Because of daily rebalancing and the compounding of each
day’s return over time, the return of the Fund for periods longer than a single day will be the result of each day’s returns compounded over the period, which will very likely differ from -200% of the return of the Index over the same period. The Fund will lose money if the Index performance is flat over time, and as a result of daily rebalancing, the Index’s volatility and the effects of compounding, it is even possible that the Fund will lose money over time while
the Index’s performance decreases over a period longer than a single day.
Principal Investment Risks
An investment in the Fund entails risk. The Fund may not achieve its inverse leveraged investment objective and there