The CORE16 Best of Breed Premier Index ETF (the “Fund”) seeks to provide investment results that, before fees and expenses, correspond generally to the total return performance of the CORE16 Best of Breed Premier Index (the “Index”). 

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the Fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the table and Example below.

This Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then sell all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses (including one year of capped expenses each period) remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your cost would be:

The Fund normally invests in securities comprising the Index. The Index is designed to provide exposure to a systematically selected, rules-based portfolio of U.S. large-cap equities, with the capacity to adjust allocations between equities and cash (or cash equivalents) to capture upside potential while mitigating downside risk. Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes) in securities comprising the Index.

The universe of eligible Index components consists of securities of U.S.-listed large capitalization companies. The Fund defines large capitalization companies as companies having a market capitalization in excess of $5 billion at the time of purchase (the “Universe”). The Fund invests in equity securities of such companies, including common stock, American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”), and Global Depositary Receipts (“GDRs”).

The Index aims to identify 50 securities with favorable near- to medium-term capital appreciation potential based on a quantitative scoring process that utilizes equity skewness. Equity skewness measures how a stock’s returns are distributed to describe if returns are more likely to be higher or lower than an average return. Positive equity skewness refers to a stock that has potential for more frequent (but smaller) losses and fewer (but larger) gains relative to the broader market. Negative equity skewness refers to a stock that has potential for more frequent (but smaller) gains and fewer (but larger) losses relative to the broader market.

In connection with each rebalance, the Index utilizes a quantitative process that calculates the equity skewness of each security within the Universe by assessing the performance of each security using a moving average and considering the correlation of each security’s return in relation to the Universe. The scoring process then applies a binary ranking method based on the Universe-wide average equity skewness:

In either ranking method, the Index selects the top 50 stocks based upon the ranking calculation. The Index is rebalanced biweekly, during which the Index reevaluates the Universe and recalculates each stock’s correlation to the Universe, average daily return performance and equity skewness metrics.

At each rebalance, the Index will also perform an allocation calculation to determine the amount of exposure to equity and cash (or cash equivalents). The Index’s equity and cash allocations are determined by a proprietary indicator (the “Indicator”) operated by CORE16, Inc., the index provider and sponsor to the Fund (the “Index Provider”), that functions as a rules-based mechanism to mitigate extreme downside risk. The Indicator tracks, for each of the 50 Index constituents, whether their returns over the trailing calendar year are net positive or net negative. Under normal circumstances, the Index will allocate 90% of its portfolio to the 50 selected equities on an equal-weight basis, and will allocate 10% of its portfolio to cash or cash equivalent investments, including directly in securities and other instruments that provide the desired exposure to the asset class, such as short-term fixed income exchange-traded funds. If the Indicator drops below the predefined threshold, the Index will increase the cash allocation to 20% and reduce the equity exposure to 80% at the next rebalance. The Index will remain in this more defensive posture until the Indicator reverts to normal conditions, at which point the cash allocation will revert to 10% at a subsequent rebalance.

The Fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., invest more than 25% of its total assets) in a particular industry or group of industries to approximately the same extent the Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries.

The Fund employs a “passive management” investment strategy designed to track the performance of the Index. Exchange Traded Concepts, LLC (the “Adviser”) generally uses a replication methodology, meaning it invests in all of the securities comprising the Index in proportion to their respective weightings in the Index. However, the Adviser may utilize a sampling methodology under various circumstances, including when it may not be possible or practicable to purchase all of the securities in the Index. The Adviser expects that over time, if the Fund has sufficient assets, the correlation between the Fund’s performance, before fees and expenses, and that of the Index will be 95% or better. A figure of 100% would indicate perfect correlation.

The Fund may invest up to 20% of its assets in investments that are not included in the Index, but that the Adviser believes will help the Fund track the performance of the Index.

The Fund is a “non-diversified company” under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “1940 Act”) and, therefore, may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a particular issuer than a diversified fund.

The Index is owned the Index Provider. The Index Provider developed the methodology for determining the securities to be included in the Index and is responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the Index, oversight of the implementation of the Index methodology, and changes in classification of the securities in the Index.

The Index is calculated and published by Indxx, LLC (the “Index Calculator”). The Index Calculator is responsible for implementing the reconstitution and monitoring and implementing any adjustments, additions and deletions to the Index based on the Index methodology and certain corporate actions, such as initial public offerings, mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcies, suspensions, de-listings, tender offers and spin-offs. Neither the Index Provider nor the Index Calculator is affiliated with each other or with the Fund or the Adviser.

The Fund is new and therefore has no performance history. Once the Fund has completed a full calendar year of operations, a bar chart and table will be included that will provide some indication of the risks of investing in the Fund by comparing the Fund’s return to a broad measure of market performance.

Authorized Participant Concentration Risk. Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the Fund. A limited number of institutions act as authorized participants for the Fund. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders and no other authorized participant steps forward to create or redeem, the Fund’s shares may trade at a premium or discount (the difference between the market price of the Fund’s shares and the Fund’s net asset value) and possibly face delisting and the bid/ask spread (the difference between the price that someone is willing to pay for shares of the Fund at a specific point in time versus the price at which someone is willing to sell) on the Fund’s shares may widen.

Cybersecurity Risk. The Fund is susceptible to operational risks through breaches in cyber security. A breach in cyber security refers to both intentional and unintentional events that may cause the Fund to lose proprietary information, suffer data corruption or lose operational capacity. Such events could cause the Fund to incur regulatory penalties, reputational damage, additional compliance costs associated with corrective measures and/or financial loss. Cyber security breaches may involve unauthorized access to the Fund’s digital information systems through “hacking” or malicious software coding but may also result from outside attacks such as denial-of-service attacks through efforts to make network services unavailable to intended users. In addition, cyber security breaches of the issuers of securities in which the Fund invests or the Fund’s third-party service providers, such as its administrator, transfer agent, custodian, or sub-adviser, as applicable, can also subject the Fund to many of the same risks associated with direct cyber security breaches. Although the Fund has established risk management systems designed to reduce the risks associated with cyber security, there is no guarantee that such efforts will succeed, especially because the Fund does not directly control the cyber security systems of issuers or third-party service providers.

Equity Securities Risk. The value of the Fund’s shares will fluctuate with changes in the value of the equity securities in which it invests. Equity securities prices fluctuate for several reasons, including changes in investors’ perceptions of the financial condition of an issuer or the general condition of the relevant equity market, such as market volatility, or when political or economic events affecting an issuer occur. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase. 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.

Index Concentration Risk. The Fund will be concentrated in an industry or a group of industries to the extent that the Index is so concentrated. To the extent that the Fund invests a significant percentage of its assets in a single asset class or the securities of issuers within the same country, state, region, industry or sector, an adverse economic, business or political development may affect the value of the Fund’s investments more than if the Fund were more broadly diversified. A significant exposure makes the Fund more susceptible to any single occurrence and may subject the Fund to greater market risk than a fund that is more broadly diversified. There may be instances in which the Index, for a variety of reasons including changes in the prices of individual securities held by the Fund, has a larger exposure to a small number of stocks or a single stock relative to the rest of the stocks in the Index. Under such circumstances, the Fund will not deviate from the Index except in rare circumstances or in an immaterial way and therefore the Fund’s returns would be more greatly influenced by the returns of the stock(s) with the larger exposure. 

Large Capitalization Companies Risk. Large capitalization companies may grow at a slower rate and be less able to adapt to changing market conditions than smaller capitalization companies. Thus, the return on investment in securities of large capitalization companies may be less than the return on investment in securities of small and/or mid capitalization companies. The performance of large capitalization companies also tends to trail the overall market during different market cycles.

Market Maker Risk. The Fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for Fund shares due to a limited number of market markers. Decisions by market makers or authorized participants to reduce their role or step away from these activities in times of market stress could inhibit the effectiveness of the arbitrage process in maintaining the relationship between the underlying values of the Fund’s portfolio securities and the Fund’s market price. The Fund may rely on a small number of third-party market makers to provide a market for the purchase and sale of shares. Any trading halt or other problem relating to the trading activity of these market makers could result in a dramatic change in the spread between the Fund’s net asset value and the price at which the Fund’s shares are trading on the Exchange, which could result in a decrease in value of the Fund’s shares. This reduced effectiveness could result in Fund shares trading at a discount to net asset value and also in greater than normal intraday bid-ask spreads for Fund shares. 

New/Smaller Fund Risk. A new or smaller fund is subject to the risk that its performance may not represent how the fund is expected to or may perform in the long term. In addition, new funds have limited operating histories for investors to evaluate and new and smaller funds may not attract sufficient assets to achieve investment and trading efficiencies. There can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve an economically viable size, in which case it could ultimately liquidate. The Fund may be liquidated by the Board of Trustees (the “Board”) without a shareholder vote. In a liquidation, shareholders of the Fund will receive an amount equal to the Fund’s NAV, after deducting the costs of liquidation, including the transaction costs of disposing of the Fund’s portfolio investments. Receipt of a liquidation distribution may have negative tax consequences for shareholders. Additionally, during the Fund’s liquidation all or a portion of the Fund’s portfolio may be invested in a manner not consistent with its investment objective and investment policies.

Non-Diversification Risk. The Fund is non-diversified under the 1940 Act, meaning that, as compared to a diversified fund, it can invest a greater percentage of its assets in securities issued by or representing a small number of issuers. As a result, the performance of these issuers can have a substantial impact on the Fund’s performance.

Passive Investment Risk. The Fund is not actively managed. The Fund invests in securities included in or representative of the Index regardless of investment merit. The Fund generally will not attempt to take defensive positions in declining markets. In the event that the Index is no longer calculated, the Index license is terminated or the identity or character of the Index is materially changed, the Fund will seek to engage a replacement index. The Fund will be concentrated in an industry or a group of industries to the extent that the Index is so concentrated. To the extent that the Fund invests a significant percentage of its assets in a single asset class or the securities of issuers within the same country, state, region, industry or sector, an adverse economic, business or political development may affect the value of the Fund’s investments more than if the Fund were more broadly diversified.

Premium/Discount Risk. The market price of the Fund’s shares will generally fluctuate in accordance with changes in the Fund’s net asset value as well as the relative supply of and demand for shares on the Exchange. The Fund’s investment adviser cannot predict whether shares will trade below, at or above their net asset value because the shares trade on the Exchange at market prices and not at net asset value. Price differences may be due, in large part, to the fact that supply and demand forces at work in the secondary trading market for shares will be closely related, but not identical, to the same forces influencing the prices of the holdings of the Fund trading individually or in the aggregate at any point in time. However, given that shares can only be purchased and redeemed in Creation Units, and only to and from broker-dealers and large institutional investors that have entered into participation agreements (unlike shares of closed-end funds, which frequently trade at appreciable discounts from, and sometimes at premiums to, their net asset value), the Fund’s investment adviser believes that large discounts or premiums to the net asset value of shares should not be sustained. During stressed market conditions, the market for the Fund’s shares may become less liquid in response to deteriorating liquidity in the market for the Fund’s underlying portfolio holdings, which could in turn lead to differences between the market price of the Fund’s shares and their net asset value and the bid/ask spread on the Fund’s shares may widen.