fail to recover additional amounts (i.e.,
premiums) paid for securities with higher interest rates, resulting in an unexpected capital
loss.
Taxability Risk. There is no guarantee that all of the Fund’s income from municipal investments will remain exempt from
federal or state or local income taxes. The Fund’s investments in municipal securities rely
on the opinion of the issuer’s bond counsel that the interest paid on those securities will not be subject to federal income tax. Tax opinions are generally provided at the time the municipal security is
initially issued. However, after the Fund buys a security, the Internal Revenue Service may
determine that a bond issued as tax-exempt should in fact be taxable or there may be unfavorable changes in tax laws or noncompliant conduct of a securities issuer that may cause income from all or certain municipal
securities to be taxable. In order to pay tax-exempt interest, tax-exempt securities must meet
certain legal requirements. Failure to meet such requirements may cause the interest received and distributed by the Fund to shareholders to be taxable. If the Fund fails to meet the requirements necessary to pay out
exempt-interest dividends to its shareholders, the income distributions resulting from all of its
investments, including its municipal securities, may be subject to federal income tax when received by shareholders.
In addition, future laws, regulations, rulings or court decisions may cause interest on municipal securities to be subject, directly or indirectly, to U.S. federal income
taxation or interest on state municipal securities to be subject to state or local income
taxation, or the value of state municipal securities to be subject to state or local intangible personal property tax, or may otherwise prevent the Fund from realizing the full current benefit of the tax-exempt status of such
securities. Any such change could also affect the market price of such securities, and thus the
value of an investment in the Fund.
High Yield
Securities Risk. The Fund may invest in securities and instruments of muncipal issuers that are
highly leveraged, less creditworthy or financially distressed. These investments (also known as
junk bonds) are considered to be speculative and are subject to greater risk of loss, greater sensitivity to economic changes, valuation difficulties, and potential illiquidity.
In recent years, there has been a broad trend of weaker or less restrictive covenant protections in the high
yield market. Among other things, under such weaker or less restrictive covenants, borrowers
might be able to exercise more flexibility with respect to certain activities than borrowers who are subject to stronger or more protective covenants. For example, borrowers might be able to incur more debt, including secured debt,
return more capital to shareholders, remove or reduce assets that are designated as collateral
securing high yield securities, increase the claims against assets that are permitted against collateral securing high yield securities or otherwise manage their business in ways that could impact creditors
negatively. In addition, certain privately held borrowers might be permitted to file less
frequent, less detailed or less timely financial reporting or other information, which could
negatively impact the value of the high yield securities issued by such
borrowers.
Each of these factors might negatively impact the high yield instruments held by the Fund. No active trading
market may exist for some instruments and certain investments may be subject to restrictions on
resale. The inability to dispose of the Fund’s securities and other investments in a timely fashion
could result in losses to the Fund. Because
some instruments may have a more limited secondary market, liquidity and valuation risk may be
more pronounced for the Fund. When instruments are prepaid, the Fund may have to reinvest in instruments with a lower yield or fail to recover additional amounts (i.e., premiums) paid for these instruments,
resulting in an unexpected capital loss and/or a decrease in the amount of dividends and
yield.
Zero-Coupon Bond Risk. The market value of a zero-coupon bond is generally more volatile than the market value of other fixed income securities with similar maturities that pay interest periodically. In addition, federal income tax law
requires that the holder of a zero-coupon bond accrue a portion of the discount at which the bond
was purchased as taxable income each year. The Fund may consequently have to dispose of portfolio
securities under disadvantageous circumstances to generate cash to satisfy its requirement as a regulated investment company to distribute all of its net income (including non-cash income attributable to zero-coupon
securities). These actions may reduce the assets to which the Fund’s expenses could
otherwise be allocated and may reduce the Fund’s rate of return.
Transactions Risk. The Fund could experience a loss and
its liquidity may be negatively impacted when selling securities to meet redemption requests. The
risk of loss increases if the redemption requests are unusually large or frequent or occur in
times of overall market turmoil or declining prices. Similarly, large purchases of Fund shares
may adversely affect the Fund’s performance to the extent that the Fund is delayed in investing new cash and is required to maintain a larger cash position than it ordinarily would.
General Market Risk. Economies and financial markets throughout the world are becoming increasingly interconnected, which increases the likelihood that events or conditions in one country or region will adversely impact
markets or issuers in other countries or regions. Securities in the Fund’s portfolio may
underperform in comparison to securities in general financial markets, a particular financial
market or other asset classes due to a number of factors, including inflation (or expectations for
inflation), deflation (or expectations for deflation), interest rates, global demand for
particular products or resources, market instability, financial system instability, debt crises and
downgrades, embargoes, tariffs, sanctions and other trade barriers, regulatory events, other
governmental trade or market control programs and related geopolitical events. In addition, the
value of the Fund’s investments may be negatively affected by the occurrence of global events such as war, terrorism, environmental disasters, natural disasters or events, country instability, and infectious disease epidemics or
pandemics or the threat or potential of one or more such factors and occurrences.
Industry and Sector Focus Risk. At times the Fund may
increase the relative emphasis of its investments in a particular industry or sector. The prices
of securities of issuers in a particular industry or sector may be more susceptible to fluctuations due to changes in economic or business conditions, government regulations, availability of basic resources or
supplies, contagion risk within a particular industry or sector or to other industries or
sectors, or other events that affect that industry or sector more than securities of issuers in other industries and sectors. To the extent that the Fund increases the relative emphasis of