v3.26.1
Investment Strategy
Dec. 31, 2025
Virtus AlphaSimplex Global Alternatives Fund  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Strategy [Heading] Principal Investment Strategies
Strategy Narrative [Text Block]

The fund seeks to achieve long and short exposure to global equity, bond, currency and commodity markets through a wide range of derivative instruments and direct investments. Under normal market conditions, the fund’s subadviser, AlphaSimplex Group, LLC (“AlphaSimplex”), typically will make extensive use of derivative instruments, in particular futures, forward contracts and swaps on global equity and fixed-income securities, securities indices (including both broad- and narrow-based securities indices), currencies and commodities, and other instruments such as certificates of deposit. These investments are intended to provide the fund with risk and return characteristics similar to those of a diversified portfolio of hedge funds. The fund may also make direct long and short investments in equity and fixed-income securities.

The fund seeks to generate absolute positive returns over time rather than track the performance of any particular index of hedge fund returns. In selecting investments for the fund, AlphaSimplex uses quantitative models to estimate the market exposures that drive the aggregate returns of a diverse set of hedge funds. AlphaSimplex seeks to capture these market exposures in the aggregate while adding value through dynamic allocation among market exposures and volatility management. These market exposures may include primarily exposures to the returns of stocks, fixed-income securities (including U.S. and non-U.S. government securities, as well as corporate debt securities), currencies and commodities. In estimating these market exposures, AlphaSimplex may use various approaches, including analyses of the returns of hedge funds included in one or more commercially available databases selected by AlphaSimplex (for example, the Lipper TASS hedge fund database) and regulatory filings. The fund may also directly employ various strategies commonly used by hedge funds that seek to profit from underlying risk factors, such as merger arbitrage and trend-following strategies. In a merger arbitrage strategy, AlphaSimplex buys shares of target companies in corporate reorganizations and establishes short positions in shares of the acquiring companies. Trend-following strategies analyze markets over various time horizons to invest either long or short in assets whose values are rising or falling, respectively.

AlphaSimplex will have flexibility to allocate the fund’s exposure among various securities, indices, currencies, commodities and other instruments; the amount of the fund’s assets that may be allocated to various strategies and among investments is expected to vary over time. When buying and selling securities and other instruments for the fund, AlphaSimplex also may consider other factors, such as: (i) the fund’s obligations under its various derivative positions; (ii) portfolio rebalancing; (iii) redemption requests; (iv) yield management; (v) credit management; and (vi) volatility management. The fund will not invest directly in hedge funds. The fund may invest in non-U.S. securities and instruments and securities and instruments traded outside the United States, and expects to engage in non-U.S. currency transactions.

As of the date of this prospectus, AlphaSimplex targets an annualized volatility level of 9% or less (as measured by the standard deviation of the fund’s returns). The standard deviation is a measure of how dispersed the data are in relation to the average data point. For a particular time period, the standard deviation of the fund's returns is, therefore, a measure of how dispersed daily fund returns are relative to the average daily fund return during this period. A low standard deviation means that daily returns are clustered around the average daily return. On the other hand, a high standard deviation means that daily returns are more spread out. Some investors use standard deviation as a measure of risk to compare the expected risk and volatility of various investment options. For example, a typical equity fund will have a higher standard deviation of returns than a typical money market fund, as equity funds generally experience higher volatility of returns as compared to a money market fund. The fund’s actual or realized volatility during certain periods or over time may materially exceed its target volatility for various reasons, including changes in market levels of volatility and because the fund’s portfolio may include instruments that are inherently volatile. This would increase the risk of investing in the fund.

Under normal market conditions, it is expected that no more than 25% of the fund’s total assets will be dedicated to initial and variation margin payments relating to the fund’s derivative transactions. The gross notional value of the fund’s derivative investments, however, will generally exceed 25% of the fund’s assets, and may significantly exceed the total value of the fund’s assets. AlphaSimplex will invest a portion of the fund’s assets, which may vary over time, in short-term, high-quality securities. Such investments will be used primarily to finance the fund’s investments in derivatives and, secondarily, to provide the fund with incremental income and liquidity, and may include: (i) short-term obligations issued or guaranteed by the United States government, its agencies or instrumentalities; (ii) securities issued by foreign governments, their political subdivisions or agencies or instrumentalities; (iii) certificates of deposit, time deposits and bankers’ acceptances issued by domestic banks, foreign branches of domestic banks, foreign subsidiaries of domestic banks, and domestic and foreign branches of foreign banks; (iv) variable amount master demand notes; (v) participation interests in loans extended by banks to companies; (vi) commercial paper or similar debt obligations; and (vii) repurchase agreements. AlphaSimplex will select such investments based on various factors, including the security’s maturity and credit rating.

Although the fund does not intend to invest in physical commodities directly, the fund expects to seek to gain its exposure to commodities and commodity-related derivatives through a wholly-owned subsidiary organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands that will make commodity-related investments (the “Subsidiary”). The fund may invest up to 25% of its total assets in the Subsidiary. The strategies and risks described herein for the fund are therefore also applicable to the Subsidiary. Under normal market conditions, no more than 10% of the fund’s total assets are expected to be dedicated to initial and variation margin payments relating to these transactions.

The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of securities and other instruments, including derivatives. Active and frequent trading of derivatives, like active and frequent trading of securities, will result in transaction costs which reduce fund returns.

The percentage limitations set forth herein are not investment restrictions and the fund may exceed these limits from time to time.

Virtus AlphaSimplex Managed Futures Strategy Fund  
Prospectus [Line Items]  
Strategy [Heading] Principal Investment Strategies
Strategy Narrative [Text Block]

The fund seeks to generate positive absolute returns over time. Under normal market conditions, the fund’s subadviser, AlphaSimplex Group, LLC (“AlphaSimplex”), typically will make extensive use of a variety of derivative instruments, including futures and forward contracts, to capture the exposures suggested by its absolute return strategy while also seeking to add value through volatility management. These market exposures, which are expected to change over time, may include primarily exposures to the returns of U.S. and non-U.S. equity and fixed-income securities indices (including both broad- and narrow-based securities indices), currencies and commodities. AlphaSimplex will have great flexibility to allocate the fund’s derivatives exposure among various securities, indices, currencies, commodities and other instruments; the amount of the fund’s assets that may be allocated to derivative strategies and among these various instruments is expected to vary over time. AlphaSimplex uses proprietary quantitative models to identify price trends in equity, fixed-income, currency and commodity instruments across time periods of various lengths. AlphaSimplex believes that asset prices may show persistent trending behavior due to a number of behavioral biases among market participants as well as certain risk-management policies that will identify assets to purchase in upward-trending markets and identify assets to sell in downward-trending markets. AlphaSimplex believes that following trends across a widely diversified set of assets, combined with active risk management, may allow it to earn a positive expected return over time. The fund may have both “short” and “long” exposures within an asset class based upon AlphaSimplex’s analysis of multiple time horizons to identify trends in a particular asset class. A “short” exposure will benefit when the underlying asset class decreases in price. A “long” exposure will benefit when the underlying asset class increases in price. AlphaSimplex will scale the notional exposure of the fund’s futures and currency forward positions with the objective of targeting a relatively stable level of annualized volatility for the fund’s overall portfolio. As of the date of this prospectus, AlphaSimplex targets an annualized volatility level of 17% or less (as measured by the standard deviation of the fund’s returns). The standard deviation is a measure of how dispersed the data are in relation to the average data point. For a particular time period, the standard deviation of the fund’s returns is, therefore, a measure of how dispersed daily fund returns are relative to the average daily fund return during this period. A low standard deviation means that daily returns are clustered around the average daily return. On the other hand, a high standard deviation means that daily returns are more spread out. Some investors use standard deviation as a measure of risk to compare the expected risk and volatility of various investment options. For example, a typical equity fund will have a higher standard deviation of returns than a typical money market fund, as equity funds generally experience higher volatility of returns as compared to a money market fund. The fund’s actual or realized volatility during certain periods or over time may materially exceed its target volatility for various reasons, including changes in market levels of volatility and because the fund’s portfolio may include instruments that are inherently volatile. This would increase the risk of investing in the fund.

Under normal market conditions, it is expected that no more than 25% of the fund’s total assets will be dedicated to initial and variation margin payments relating to the fund’s derivative transactions. The gross notional value of the fund’s derivative investments, however, will generally exceed 25% of the fund’s total assets, and may significantly exceed the total value of the fund’s assets. The fund expects that under normal market conditions it will invest at least 75% of its total assets in money market and other short-term, high-quality securities (such as bankers’ acceptances, certificates of deposit, commercial paper, loan participations, repurchase agreements and time deposits) (the “Money Market Portion”), although the fund may invest less than this percentage. AlphaSimplex will determine the percentage of the fund’s assets that will be invested in the Money Market Portion at any time. The assets allocated to the Money Market Portion will be used primarily to support the fund’s investments in derivatives and, secondarily, to provide the fund with incremental income and liquidity. Although the fund will invest a significant portion of its assets in money market instruments, the fund is not a “money market” fund and the value of the Money Market Portion as well as the value of the fund’s shares may decrease. The fund is not subject to the portfolio quality, maturity and net asset value requirements applicable to money market funds, and the fund will not seek to maintain a stable net asset value. The fund will concentrate its investments in the financial services industry, which means it will normally invest at least 25% of its total assets in securities and other obligations (for example, bank certificates of deposit, repurchase agreements and time deposits) of issuers in such industry.

AlphaSimplex will only invest the assets of the Money Market Portion in high-quality securities which are denominated in U.S. dollars, and will select securities for investment based on various factors, including the security’s maturity and rating. Duration for all assets in the Money Market Portion is limited to 397 days or less and the weighted average maturity is limited to 120 days or less. AlphaSimplex will invest primarily in: (i) short-term obligations issued or guaranteed by the United States government, its agencies or instrumentalities (“U.S. Government Obligations”); (ii) securities issued by foreign governments, their political subdivisions, agencies or instrumentalities; (iii) certificates of deposit, time deposits and bankers’ acceptances issued by domestic banks, foreign branches of domestic banks, foreign subsidiaries of domestic banks and domestic and foreign branches of foreign banks; (iv) variable amount master demand notes; (v) participation interests in loans extended by banks to companies; (vi) commercial paper or similar debt obligations; and (vii) repurchase agreements.

Although the fund does not intend to invest in physical commodities directly, the fund expects to seek to gain its exposure to commodities and commodity-related derivatives by investing in a wholly-owned subsidiary organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands that will make commodity-related investments (the “Subsidiary”). The fund may invest up to 25% of its total assets in the Subsidiary. The strategies and risks described herein for the fund are therefore also applicable to the Subsidiary. Under normal market conditions, no more than 10% of the fund’s total assets are expected to be dedicated to initial and variation margin payments relating to these transactions.

Although the fund seeks positive absolute returns over time, it is likely that the fund’s investment returns may be volatile over short periods of time. The fund may outperform the overall securities market during periods of flat or negative market performance and may underperform during periods of strong market performance. There can be no assurance that the fund’s returns over time or during any period will be positive or that the fund will outperform the overall security markets over time or during any particular period.

The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of securities and other instruments, including derivatives. Due to the short-term nature of the fund’s investment portfolio, the fund does not calculate a portfolio turnover rate. Active and frequent trading of derivatives, like active and frequent trading of securities, will result in transaction costs which reduce fund returns.

The percentage limitations set forth herein are not investment restrictions and the fund may exceed these limits from time to time.