WHEATON, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--First Trust Advisors L.P. (“First Trust” or “FTA”), a leading provider of exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) and outcome-based strategies, today announced it has launched the FT Vest Dow Jones Internet & Target Income ETF (Cboe: FDND) (the “fund”). The fund is an actively managed ETF that seeks to provide investors with current income that, when annualized, is approximately 8% (before fees and expenses), over the annual dividend yield of the Nasdaq-100® Index.** The fund has a secondary objective of capital appreciation.
First Trust’s suite of Target Outcome ETFs has amassed approximately $18 billion in total net assets as of 2/29/2024.* “We are thrilled to expand First Trust’s lineup of Target Income ETFs with the launch of FDND, which will enable investors to effectively harvest some of the volatility inherent in internet stocks by selling call options against a portion of its holdings,” said Ryan Issakainen, CFA, Senior Vice President, ETF Strategist at First Trust.
Rising interest rates, low real bond yields, and increasingly positive stock/bond correlations have heightened portfolio risk and have created a performance drag for many investors’ portfolios. FDND seeks to provide an alternative source of consistent income through a novel Target Income Strategy®, developed by Vest Financial LLC (“Vest”), sub-advisor to the fund and creator of Target Outcome Investments® and Target Income Strategies®.
The fund’s Target Income Strategy® seeks to increase total income for investors while participating in the potential price appreciation of the equities held in the fund.
For the equity portion of the fund’s portfolio, the fund seeks to track the Dow Jones Internet Composite Index’s equity portfolio and invests in U.S. companies in the Internet Commerce and Internet Services sectors. The equity securities held by the fund provide capital appreciation potential based on the price returns of the equities. The index seeks to include 40 U.S. exchange-traded equity securities and the constituents and individual security weighting of the fund’s equity portfolio are actively managed.
A partial call selling strategy seeks to convert a portion of the growth potential of the fund into current income. Each week, the fund determines the amount of options premium it needs to generate relative to its income target, and writes the appropriate amount of call options, while still potentially participating in some of the price appreciation of the equity securities.***
Jeff Chang, President of Vest said, “In 2017, Vest revolutionized the market with our Target Income partial covered call strategy, which seeks to generate consistent current income and allow participation in the potential growth of stocks. We are pleased to extend this strategy to FDND. For the first time, investors can collect current income while still potentially participating in some of the price appreciation of the stocks in the Dow Jones Internet Composite Index.”
For more information about First Trust, please contact Ryan Issakainen at (630) 765-8689 or RIssakainen@FTAdvisors.com.
*Based on assets under management as of 2/29/24
**For tax purposes, distributions may consist of ordinary income, capital gains or return of capital. A return of capital will reduce an investor’s principal investment.
***There is no guarantee that the fund’s income target will be achieved. The fund does not seek to achieve any specific level of total return performance compared with the total return performance of the Dow Jones Internet Composite Index (the “index”) or the Nasdaq-100® Index. Capital appreciation on the securities held by the fund may be less than the capital appreciation of the index and/or the Nasdaq-100® Index, and the total return performance of the fund may be less than the total return performance of the index and/or the Nasdaq-100® Index. Dividend growth among the companies included in the fund may not necessarily correlate with the overall performance of the fund. There is no guarantee that companies will declare dividends in the future or that, if declared, they will either remain at current levels or increase over time.
About First Trust
First Trust is a federally registered investment advisor and serves as the funds’ investment advisor. First Trust and its affiliate First Trust Portfolios L.P. (“FTP”), a FINRA registered broker-dealer, are privately held companies that provide a variety of investment services. First Trust has collective assets under management or supervision of approximately $218 billion as of February 29, 2024, through unit investment trusts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, mutual funds and separate managed accounts. First Trust is the supervisor of the First Trust unit investment trusts, while FTP is the sponsor. FTP is also a distributor of mutual fund shares and exchange-traded fund creation units. First Trust and FTP are based in Wheaton, Illinois. For more information, visit www.ftportfolios.com.
About Vest:
Vest is the creator of Target Outcome Investments®, which strive to buffer losses, manage volatility, amplify gains or provide consistent income to a diverse spectrum of investors. Today, Vest’s Target Outcome Strategies® are available in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), unit investment trusts (UITs), collective investment trusts (CITs), variable insurance trusts (VITs) and customizable managed accounts/sub-advisory services. For more information visit www.vestfin.com or contact Linda Werner at lwerner@vestfin.com or 703-864-5483.
You should consider a fund’s investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses carefully before investing. Contact First Trust Portfolios L.P. at 1-800-621-1675 or visit www.ftportfolios.com to obtain a prospectus or summary prospectus which contains this and other information about a fund. The prospectus or summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing.
Risk Considerations
You could lose money by investing in a fund. An investment in a fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed. There can be no assurance that a fund’s objective(s) will be achieved. Investors buying or selling shares on the secondary market may incur customary brokerage commissions. Please refer to each fund’s prospectus and Statement of Additional Information for additional details on a fund’s risks. The order of the below risk factors does not indicate the significance of any particular risk factor.
Unlike mutual funds, shares of the fund may only be redeemed directly from a fund by authorized participants in very large creation/redemption units. If a fund's authorized participants are unable to proceed with creation/redemption orders and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to create or redeem, fund shares may trade at a premium or discount to a fund's net asset value and possibly face delisting and the bid/ask spread may widen.
A fund's use of call options involves risks different from those associated with ordinary portfolio securities transactions and depends on the ability of a fund's portfolio managers to forecast market movements correctly. As the seller (writer) of a call option, a fund will tend to lose money if the value of the reference index or security rises above the strike price. When writing a call option, a fund will have no control over the exercise of the option by the option holder and the American style options sold by a fund may be exercised at any time before the option expiration date (as opposed to the European style options which may be exercised only on the expiration date). There may be times a fund needs to sell securities in order to settle the options, which may constitute a return of capital and make a fund less tax-efficient than other ETFs. Options may also involve the use of leverage, which could result in greater price volatility than other markets.
A fund that effects all or a portion of its creations and redemptions for cash rather than in-kind may be less tax-efficient.
Communication services companies are subject to certain risks, which may include rapidly changing technologies, short product life cycles, fierce competition, aggressive pricing and reduced profit margins, loss of patent, copyright and trademark protections, cyclical market patterns, evolving industry standards, often unpredictable changes in consumer tastes and frequent new product introductions. Such companies are particularly vulnerable to domestic and international government regulation, rely heavily on intellectual property rights, and may be adversely affected by the loss or impairment of those rights.
A fund may be subject to the risk that a counterparty will not fulfill its obligations which may result in significant financial loss to a fund.
Current market conditions risk is the risk that a particular investment, or shares of the fund in general, may fall in value due to current market conditions. As a means to fight inflation, the Federal Reserve and certain foreign central banks have raised interest rates and expect to continue to do so, and the Federal Reserve has announced that it intends to reverse previously implemented quantitative easing. Recent and potential future bank failures could result in disruption to the broader banking industry or markets generally and reduce confidence in financial institutions and the economy as a whole, which may also heighten market volatility and reduce liquidity. Ongoing armed conflicts between Russia and Ukraine in Europe and among Israel, Hamas and other militant groups in the Middle East, have caused and could continue to cause significant market disruptions and volatility within the markets in Russia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The hostilities and sanctions resulting from those hostilities have and could continue to have a significant impact on certain fund investments as well as fund performance and liquidity. The COVID-19 global pandemic, or any future public health crisis, and the ensuing policies enacted by governments and central banks have caused and may continue to cause significant volatility and uncertainty in global financial markets, negatively impacting global growth prospects.
A fund is susceptible to operational risks through breaches in cyber security. Such events could cause a fund to incur regulatory penalties, reputational damage, additional compliance costs associated with corrective measures and/or financial loss.
The use of derivatives instruments involves different and possibly greater risks than investing directly in securities including counterparty risk, valuation risk, volatility risk, and liquidity risk. Further, losses because of adverse movements in the price or value of the underlying asset, index or rate may be magnified by certain features of the derivatives.
A fund normally pays its income as distributions and therefore, a fund may be required to reduce its distributions if it has insufficient income. Additionally at times, a fund may need to sell securities when it would not otherwise do so and could cause distributions from that sale to constitute return of capital. Because of this, a fund may not be an appropriate investment for investors who do not want their principal investment in a fund to decrease over time or who do not wish to receive return of capital in a given period.
Companies that issue dividend-paying securities are not required to continue to pay dividends on such securities. Therefore, there is a possibility that such companies could reduce or eliminate the payment of dividends in the future.
Equity securities may decline significantly in price over short or extended periods of time, and such declines may occur in the equity market as a whole, or they may occur in only a particular country, company, industry or sector of the market.
An index fund will be concentrated in an industry or a group of industries to the extent that the index is so concentrated. A fund with significant exposure to a single asset class, or the securities of issuers within the same country, state, region, industry, or sector may have its value more affected by an adverse economic, business or political development than a broadly diversified fund.
A fund may be a constituent of one or more indices or models which could greatly affect a fund's trading activity, size and volatility.
There is no assurance that the index provider or its agents will compile or maintain the index accurately. Losses or costs associated with any index provider errors generally will be borne by a fund and its shareholders.
As inflation increases, the present value of a fund's assets and distributions may decline.
Information technology companies are subject to certain risks, including rapidly changing technologies, short product life cycles, fierce competition, aggressive pricing and reduced profit margins, loss of patent, copyright and trademark protections, cyclical market patterns, evolving industry standards and regulation and frequent new product introductions.
Large capitalization companies may grow at a slower rate than the overall market.
Leverage may result in losses that exceed the amount originally invested and may accelerate the rates of losses. Leverage tends to magnify, sometimes significantly, the effect of any increase or decrease in a fund's exposure to an asset or class of assets and may cause the value of a fund's shares to be volatile and sensitive to market swings.
Certain fund investments may be subject to restrictions on resale, trade over-the-counter or in limited volume, or lack an active trading market. Illiquid securities may trade at a discount and may be subject to wide fluctuations in market value.
The portfolio managers of an actively managed portfolio will apply investment techniques and risk analyses that may not have the desired result.
Market risk is the risk that a particular security, or shares of a fund in general may fall in value. Securities are subject to market fluctuations caused by such factors as general economic conditions, political events, regulatory or market developments, changes in interest rates and perceived trends in securities prices. Shares of a fund could decline in value or underperform other investments as a result. In addition, local, regional or global events such as war, acts of terrorism, spread of infectious disease or other public health issues, recessions, natural disasters or other events could have significant negative impact on a fund.
A fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares due to a limited number of market makers. Decisions by market makers or authorized participants to reduce their role or step away in times of market stress could inhibit the effectiveness of the arbitrage process in maintaining the relationship between the underlying values of a fund's portfolio securities and a fund's market price.
Large inflows and outflows may impact a new fund's market exposure for limited periods of time.
A fund classified as "non-diversified" may invest a relatively high percentage of its assets in a limited number of issuers. As a result, a fund may be more susceptible to a single adverse economic or regulatory occurrence affecting one or more of these issuers, experience increased volatility and be highly concentrated in certain issuers.
A fund and a fund's advisor may seek to reduce various operational risks through controls and procedures, but it is not possible to completely protect against such risks. The fund also relies on third parties for a range of services, including custody, and any delay or failure related to those services may affect the fund's ability to meet its objective.
The prices of options are volatile and the effective use of options depends on a fund's ability to terminate option positions at times deemed desirable to do so. There is no assurance that a fund will be able to effect closing transactions at any particular time or at an acceptable price.
A fund's investment in equity securities and written call options are not correlated, meaning the performance is independent of one another. Market events may impact one position held by a fund more than the other position and the returns from a fund's investments in equity securities and written call options may not move in the same direction as one another.
High portfolio turnover may result in higher levels of transaction costs and may generate greater tax liabilities for shareholders.
The market price of a fund's shares will generally fluctuate in accordance with changes in the fund's net asset value ("NAV") as well as the relative supply of and demand for shares on the exchange, and a fund's investment advisor cannot predict whether shares will trade below, at or above their NAV.
A fund with significant exposure to a single asset class, country, region, industry, or sector may be more affected by an adverse economic or political development than a broadly diversified fund.
If a fund does not qualify as a RIC for any taxable year and certain relief provisions were not available, a fund's taxable income would be subject to tax at the fund level and to a further tax at the shareholder level when such income is distributed. Further, there may be other tax implications to a fund based on the type of investments in a fund.
Trading on an exchange may be halted due to market conditions or other reasons. There can be no assurance that a fund's requirements to maintain the exchange listing will continue to be met or be unchanged.
A fund may hold securities or other assets that may be valued on the basis of factors other than market quotations. This may occur because the asset or security does not trade on a centralized exchange, or in times of market turmoil or reduced liquidity. Portfolio holdings that are valued using techniques other than market quotations, including "fair valued" assets or securities, may be subject to greater fluctuation in their valuations from one day to the next than if market quotations were used. There is no assurance that a fund could sell or close out a portfolio position for the value established for it at any time.
First Trust Advisors L.P. (FTA) is the adviser to the First Trust fund(s). FTA is an affiliate of First Trust Portfolios L.P., the distributor of the fund(s).
The information presented is not intended to constitute an investment recommendation for, or advice to, any specific person. By providing this information, First Trust is not undertaking to give advice in any fiduciary capacity within the meaning of ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code or any other regulatory framework. Financial professionals are responsible for evaluating investment risks independently and for exercising independent judgment in determining whether investments are appropriate for their clients.
The Target Outcome registered trademarks are registered trademarks of Vest Financial LLC.
The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index (“Index”) is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC or its affiliates (“SPDJI”) and has been licensed for use by First Trust. S&P® is a registered trademark of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC (“S&P”); Dow Jones® is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC (“Dow Jones”); and these trademarks have been licensed for use by SPDJI and sublicensed for certain purposes by First Trust. The Fund is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by SPDJI, Dow Jones, S&P, or their respective affiliates and none of such parties make any representation regarding the advisability of investing in such product nor do they have any liability for any errors, omissions, or interruptions of the Index.
Definitions:
An option is a contractual obligation between a buyer and a seller. There are two types of options known as “calls” and “puts.” The buyer of a call option has the right, but not the obligation, to purchase an agreed upon quantity of an underlying asset from the writer (seller) of the option at a predetermined price (the strike price) within a certain window of time (until the option’s expiration), creating a long position. A put option is the opposite of a call option and gives the buyer the right to sell to the writer (seller) the underlying asset at the strike price until the option’s expiration. If the strike price is reached, the buyer has the right to exercise the option. For this right, the buyer pays a fee to the seller, called a premium.
The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index is designed to measure the performance of the 40 largest and most actively traded stocks of U.S. companies in the internet industry. To be eligible for the index, a company must derive at least 50% of sales/revenue from the internet.
The Nasdaq-100® Index includes 100 of the largest domestic and international non-financial companies listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market based on market capitalization.
