Description

The fund is passively managed to provide exposure to large- and mid-cap stocks from Canada that exhibit high-quality profiles. The fund employs a smart beta investment and rules-based proprietary index methodology, to provide investors with exposure to targeted strategic factors. The starting universe is composed of the largest 1,000 Canadian stocks. Stocks are screened further based on their composite factor score, which is based on free cash flow margin, return on invested capital, and free cash flow stability. In the case of banks, only return on equity and debt to assets are used for the calculation. Size bias is removed by blending the composite score with a size factor. Within each sector, securities are selected based on the size-adjusted composite score. Between 60 to 100 stocks are selected, and sector groups with higher return on invested capital are given more weight. The index is rebalanced semi-annually in February and August.