DELISTED - The Fund, under normal circumstances, invests at least 80% of its assets in the securities that comprise the Value Line ® Conservative Equity Index (“Index”). The Index is developed by Value Line Publishing LLC (“Value Line”) and calculated by the NYSE Group, Inc. As of December 31, 2015, the Index is composed of 140 U.S. securities selected using criteria based on Value Line’s proprietary Safety TM Ranking. The Safety TM Ranking measures the total risk of a stock and its defensive capability during an overall equity market downturn relative to the other stocks in the Value Line universe. The Value Line universe of Safety TM-Ranked stocks is comprised of approximately 1,700 stocks. The Index is reviewed weekly by Value Line and a stock will be replaced if its Safety TM Ranking falls significantly. Index components may be replaced quarterly and the positions are re-weighted annually. The Safety TM Ranking measures the volatility of each stock in the Value Line universe through its Price Stability Score and Financial Strength Rating. The Price Stability score for a stock is based on a ranking of the standard deviation of weekly percent changes in the price of the stock over the last five years. Standard deviation is the measure of dispersion of historical returns around a mean rate of return, and a lower standard deviation indicates less volatility. The Financial Strength Rating is a measure of a company’s financial condition and Value Line reviews a number of balance sheet and income statement factors to assign a rating. These factors include, but are not limited to, a company’s long-term debt to total capital ratio, short-term debt, amount of cash on hand, the level of net income, the level and growth of sales over time, and the consistency of sales, profits and returns on capital and equity over an extended timeframe. Components of the Index included companies in the consumer staples and health care sectors as of December 31, 2015. The component securities included in the Index had capitalizations ranging from $1.2 billion to $443.2 billion as of December 31, 2015. The components of the Index and the percentages represented by various sectors in the Index may change over time. The Fund will concentrate its investment ( i.e., hold 25% or more of its total assets in the stocks of a particular industry or group of industries) in a particular industry or group of industries to approximately the same extent as the Index is so concentrated. Although the Fund intends to fully replicate the Index, at times the Fund may gain exposure to only a representative sample of the securities in the Index that have aggregate characteristics similar to those of the Index, including exchange traded funds (“ETFs”) and other investment companies. The Fund seeks to remain fully invested at all times consistent with its investment objective. If the Fund receives a creation unit in cash, the Fund repositions its portfolio in response to assets flowing into or out of the Fund. To the extent the Fund experiences regular purchases or redemptions of its shares, it may reposition its portfolio more frequently. Additionally, the impact of the Index’s movements will affect whether the Fund’s portfolio needs to be re-positioned. For example, if the Index has added or removed a security, the Fund’s portfolio may have to be re-positioned to account for this change to the Index. These re-positioning strategies typically result in high portfolio turnover.
