Hi tbing-ga,
The S&P 500 Protected Equity Fund invests "primarily in a portfolio of
the common stocks of substantially all of the companies represented in
the S&P 500."
I'm quoting from the Prospectus of January 31, 2003, which is
available on-line at:
http://www.edgar-online.com/bin/edgardoc/finSys_main.asp?dcn=0000950109-03-000342&nad=
The fund's Annual Report lists all the stocks it held as of September
30, 2002:
http://www.edgar-online.com/bin/edgardoc/finSys_main.asp?dcn=0001169232-02-003170&nad=
The word "Protected" in the fund's name refers to the fund's strategy
of buying put option contracts based on the value of the S&P 500
Index. The fund has a fixed lifetime from 1999 to 2007. The option
contracts are, in effect, a bet that the index will go down in that
period, hedging the bet that the index will go up that is implied by
buying the index stocks. If the index goes up, the fund loses money
on the options, but makes money on the stocks. If the index goes
down, the fund loses money on the stocks, but the option contracts pay
off. So the option contracts provide protection against the index
stocks going down, at a cost, of course. The Prospectus cited above
provides a much more detailed explanation of this strategy.
So it seems to be intended to work like an equity index fund with some
return sacrificed for protection against loss.
Barron's Online reports that the fund paid a dividend of one cent per
share for shareholders of record December 31, 2002:
http://www.barrons.com/data/barrons_nnm_S.htm
Search strategy:
protected equity fund pefx
The edgar-online site with the Prospectus and Annual Report was down
toward the bottom of the first Google result page for this search.
The annual report showed a dividend of one cent per share. I found
the Barron's site confirming this by searching for
PEFX dividend OR dividends
I hope this information is helpful. If you need any further
information, please ask for a clarification.
--efn |
