Seeking to capture higher quality stocks within GICS sectors, QUAL make its selections from the large- and mid-cap MSCI universe by considering quality factors: high ROE, low debt/equity, and stable earnings growth. The fund changed its exposure following a September 1, 2015 index change, foregoing some of its earlier sector biases in favor of an underlying index with sector weighting that looks more like our benchmark, while applying quality factors to the stocks within those sectors. The new portfolio is expected to take less active risk (compared with the old index) relative to pure cap-weighted exposure. Historically QUAL has tracked its index well. QUAL has had strong institutional interest.
