An ARC Ratings’ Fund Rating is an independent assessment of a specific fund’s exposure to factors that could lead to unexpected Net Asset Value and total return volatility in the underlying investment portfolio of securities.

An ARC Ratings’ Asset Manager Rating (“Management Quality” or “mq” ratings) assesses an asset manager’s overall quality. The rating is intended to help investors assess the skill sets and performance of the portfolio managers, and facilitate the process of evaluating investment management firms’ overall quality.

Funds and asset manager ratings are not credit ratings and carry respectively the (f) and (mq) modifiers.