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Integrity Energized Dividend Fund is no longer energized (to be liquidated)

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/893730/000089373021000004/supplement_20210308.htm

497 1 supplement_20210308.htm
SUPPLEMENT DATED March 8, 2021
TO SUMMARY PROSPECTUS, PROSPECTUS AND
STATEMENT OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION (“SAI”)

Integrity Energized Dividend Fund (the “Fund”)

Class A: NRGDX
Class C: NRGUX
Class I: NRIGX

Summary Prospectus, Prospectus, and SAI dated November 30, 2020

The Board of Trustees of the Integrity Energized Dividend Fund (the “Board”) has determined that it is in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders that the Fund be liquidated and terminated. The Board has determined to redeem all outstanding shares of the Fund and then close the Fund on or about June 30, 2021 (the “Termination Date”).

Effective immediately, the Fund may no longer pursue its stated investment objectives, will begin liquidating its portfolio and may invest in cash equivalents such as money market funds. The Fund remains closed to additional purchases.

You may redeem or exchange your shares, including reinvested distributions, prior to the Termination Date, and you will not be subject to the Fund's contingent deferred sales charge. Additionally, if you are exchanging into a different Integrity Viking Fund you will not have to pay any initial sales charge. Any shareholders who have not redeemed or exchanged their shares of the Fund prior to the Termination Date will have their shares automatically redeemed at the net asset value per share as of that date, and proceeds will be sent to the address of record. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact your financial advisor or call the Fund's Shareholder Services Department at (800) 601-5593.

A redemption or exchange is generally considered a taxable event. You may wish to consult your tax advisor about your particular situation.


PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

Comments

  • Five-star fund in Morningstar's system, a high-vol, major laggard in MFO/Lipper. The key is whether you classified it by portfolio composition (energy) or investment objective (equity income).
  • msf
    edited March 2021
    Certainly the two classification systems - Morningstar and Refinitiv Lipper - are different. But the Lipper classification system familiar to users is, like M*'s, composition based not investment objective based (except for sectors; see below).

    Until the 1990s, funds were typically classified according to their stated objectives such as Equity Income, Growth and Income, Growth, and Capital Appreciation.
    By the early 1990s, advancements in technology permitted a new approach. Armed with funds' portfolio holdings and the computational power to evaluate them, Morningstar jettisoned fund companies' definitions, opting instead to impose its own [portfolio based] structure.
    https://www.morningstar.com/articles/931013/about-morningstars-fund-classifications

    Lipper took a different path, maintaining the old system while promulgating its portfolio-based system:
    Refinitiv Lipper originally grouped all funds by their prospectus-based objective. The introduction of Refinitiv Lipper's holdings-based classification model and the demand for more granular peer groups paved the way for the creation of a classification scheme. ...

    OPEN-END [Domestic] EQUITY FUNDS

    Prospectus-based [classification]
        Capital Appreciation Funds
        Equity Income Funds
        Equity Leverage Funds
        Growth & Income Funds
        Growth Funds
        Micro-Cap Funds
        Mid-Cap Funds
        Options Arbitrage/Option Strategies
        S&P 500 Index Objective Funds
        Small-Cap Funds

    Portfolio-based [classification]
        Equity Income Funds
        Large-Cap Core Funds
        Large-Cap Growth Funds
        Large-Cap Value Funds
        Mid-Cap Core Funds
        Mid-Cap Growth Funds
        Mid-Cap Value Funds
        Multi-Cap Core Funds
        Multi-Cap Growth Funds
        Multi-Cap Value Funds
        S&P 500 Index Funds
        S&P Midcap 400 Index Funds
        Small-Cap Core Funds
        Small-Cap Growth Funds
        Small-Cap Value Funds
        Specialty Diversified Equity Funds
    Refinitiv Lipper U.S. Fund Classifications, Aug 15, 2020

    It's this latter group of categories of diversified domestic equity funds that one finds in Lipper-based screeners. One doesn't see the objective-based categories like G&I funds.

    With respect to sector funds, Refinitiv Lipper classifies them according to their stated objectives, not according to their holdings. So what Prof. Snowball wrote about Lipper classifying NRGDX by its stated objective, not its holdings, is correct because this is a sector fund. With 95% AUM invested in energy stocks, it's hard to say otherwise.

    But if Lipper is regarding it as a sector fund (and thus classifying it according to its objective), then given its stated 25%+ concentration in energy, not to mention its 95% actual concentration, IMHO Lipper still misclassified it.
  • For Lipper, it is an "equity income" fund. That struck me as an objective ("generate income while investing in equities"), consistent with the fund's objective ("long-term appreciation while providing high current income"). The strategy is investing "in dividend-paying equity securities" with the note, a couple sentences later, that normally 65% of the portfolio will be in energy or energy-related companies.

    "Equity income" is one of the few categories (along with S&P 500 Index) to survive from the old objectives-based Lipper system ("growth and income") to the new portfolio-based one.

    As I scanned the 200 or so equity income funds, I didn't notice any others that advertised a particular sector bias. Still, I'm not sure that Lipper is wrong to classify it as equity income given the clear objective and strategy statements.

    And, regardless, it's a deadster.
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