https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/887210/000110465920137326/tm2038055d13_497.htm
497 1 tm2038055d13_497.htm 497
ABERDEEN INVESTMENT FUNDS
Aberdeen International Sustainable Leaders Fund
(formerly, Aberdeen Select International Equity Fund)
(the “Fund”)
Supplement dated December 18, 2020 to the Fund’s Prospectus and Statement of Additional
Information, each dated February 28, 2020, as supplemented to date
(the “February 2020 Prospectus and SAI”)
Effective December 1, 2020, the Aberdeen Select International Equity Fund changed its name to the Aberdeen International Sustainable Leaders Fund and changed its principal investment strategies and portfolio managers as set forth in a separate prospectus and statement of additional information dated December 1, 2020 (the “December 2020 Prospectus and SAI”). The Aberdeen International Sustainable Leaders Fund is currently offered pursuant to the December 2020 Prospectus and SAI. All references to, and information with respect to, the Aberdeen Select International Equity Fund are hereby deleted from the February 2020 Prospectus and SAI.
This supplement is dated December 18, 2020.
Please retain this Supplement for future reference.

Sorry, posted this in wrong thread: Damn, some pretty nice gains so far this year. Maybe this is the year for the new truck \m/

@SomeoneWhoIsNotWhoHeClaimsToBe You should be ashamed for using Honest Abe Lincoln's face on your post. And your forebears if they were truly coal miners and knew what's what would know there isn't a more significant union busting, labor hating party in the U.S. today than the GOP. No new coal jobs were create during Trump's presidency and in fact they hit an all-time low at the end of 2019--https://spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/us-coal-mining-employment-hits-new-low-at-the-end-of-2019-may-go-lower-in-2020-57173047 Coal is a product that is killing the planet anyway. Instead of saving those 50,000 remaining coal mining jobs, the federal and state governments should provide financial support and re-training for those workers and give them first crack at green jobs under the Green New Deal, which would create a lot more than 50,000 jobs if the GOP and Dixiecrats or today's Blue Dog Dems weren't hell bent on killing it by any means necessary.

Damn, some pretty nice gains so far this year. Maybe this is the year for the new truck \m/

Wow! Lots to unpack there...I'll just address a couple points.
DODFX appears to be team managed with 5 of the 8 managers being there since 2001-2007. It's been a mediocre, M* 3-star fund in all report periods, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years.
What makes you think that somehow that same mgmt team that has only produced 3-star ratings for their entire tenure are all of a sudden gonna turn this fund into something they've been unable to do during their entire 10-20 year tenures?
DODFX has had negative returns in 4 of the past 10 years, with double-digit losses in 3 of them, 2011, 2015 and 2018, ranging between -11% to -18%. It's actually in the RED in 2020, in a year when worthy FLV funds like CIVVX are UP 5%.
You've already posted that DODIX has virtually matched DODFX's 10-yr performance with DODIX only having ONE small loss in ONE year. (Actually, it lost -0.59% in 2015 and -0.31% in 2018.)
All that said, DODFX and DODIX are an apples and oranges comparison, or more accurately, 90/10 Foreign/US stocks vs 90/10 US/Foreign bonds.
DODFX's SD is 5x-6x that of DODIX and that's not going to change much at all, overnight, or over a 3-10 year period.
I kindly suggest that you spend a little time examining exactly what these funds respectively own, and what SD and other risk measurements mean (see Investopedia link), and how those two items make this decision pretty easy.
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/measure-mutual-fund-risk/
The conclusions that should be drawn are:
DODFX is a mediocre FLV stock fund that has only kept pace with IC+ bond fund DODIX for the past ten years.
DODFX is inherently a much higher risk fund than DODIX and the chance of it not meeting investors return expectations is significantly higher.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1413594/000110465920137366/a20-38055_17497.htm
497 1 a20-38055_17497.htm 497
ABERDEEN FUNDS
Aberdeen Emerging Markets Sustainable Leaders Fund
(formerly, Aberdeen International Equity Fund)
(the “Fund”)
Supplement dated December 18, 2020 to the Fund’s Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information, each dated February 28, 2020, as supplemented to date
(the “February 2020 Prospectus and SAI”)
Effective December 1, 2020, the Aberdeen International Equity Fund changed its name to the Aberdeen Emerging Markets Sustainable Leaders Fund and changed its principal investment strategies, including its 80% policy, benchmark and portfolio managers as set forth in a separate prospectus and statement of additional information dated December 1, 2020 (the “December 2020 Prospectus and SAI”). The Aberdeen Emerging Markets Sustainable Leaders Fund is currently offered pursuant to the December 2020 Prospectus and SAI. All references to, and information with respect to, the Aberdeen International Equity Fund are hereby deleted from the February 2020 Prospectus and SAI.
This supplement is dated December 18, 2020.
Please retain this Supplement for future reference.

Still it is interesting that DODIX is not positioned for rising rates while DODFX appears to be. Different teams but same family.

Yes - I’m surprised to see DODIX out 4.8 years on duration. In terms of volatility, it feels a lot shorter. It’s as if the two D&C teams aren’t communicating. But it also helps explain DODIX’s outperformance this year. Thanks to @MrRuffles for picking up on that (rare) slip. I’d probably have missed it myself.
Bottom line: DODIX and many others playing that space (intermediate duration / mid and lower investment grade bonds) have had an outsized year that’s not likely to repeat. That’s largely due to the Fed’s efforts on interest rates and in providing at least tacit backing for BBB corporates (generally considered borderline investment grade). I’m assuming that you can only pull the same rabbit out of the same hat once. So for 2020, the bond cart was up-ended.

This is a NY Times article and (David) feel free to move it to the Off-Topic category if you think it's more germane there.
"Nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak, the full impact of the pandemic on the U.S. economy remains unclear. Some of the most obvious indicators are in conflict: As some companies report enormous profits, nearly 10 million more Americans are now unemployed compared with last February, and over one million filed new state and federal unemployment claims last week.
Are we still in the early stages of a long recession, or will the rollout of vaccines mean we’ll soon see the end of a short-term crisis? How much are people suffering now, and for how long will the effects of the past 10 months persist?
We asked economists and experts with a variety of backgrounds how they would measure the state of the economy now and what indicators they thought were often overlooked. Here are eight measures they suggested."
How the Economy is Actually Doing

"Clearly DODFX is positioned for a rising rate environment."
I'm not so sure about that. Over the past few years, it had been positioned as a short term fund (see M* historical style boxes here), but in 2020 it extended its duration into intermediate term territory.

There’s a little confusion here. @hank is talking about DODFX wrt rising rates (as in rising rates lead to more profits for financials, hence its overweight in financials), not DODIX, which your discussion of M* style boxes links to.

"Clearly DODFX is positioned for a rising rate environment."
I'm not so sure about that. Over the past few years, it had been positioned as a short term fund (see M* historical style boxes here), but in 2020 it extended its duration into intermediate term territory.
Also, as I suggested above, rising interest rates could be a result of an improving economy. In that case, one would expect the spread between junk and IG to decline, making junk more attractive. In addition, junk bonds are less sensitive to interest rate changes, tending to a fair degree to track equities. See, e.g. this Balance piece.
Yet as you noted, DODIX is not taking advantage of its ability to hold lower grade bonds. It is one of the few core plus funds with a M* average credit rating of A. (Just 17 hold A rated portfolios vs. 25 with BB portfolios; over half the core plus funds have portfolios rated BBB.)
ISTM the fund is positioned for a slow slog; low and steady rates, where it is betting on rates not going up (and prices dropping), while not willing to bet on avoiding short term problems in the economy (where junk bond prices would fall).
In the equity market, rising interest rates are good for the financial sector, because people expect higher rates to lead to higher spreads and greater profits. I don't know how that connects with financial sector bond prices though. I really have no idea unless one expects lower profits to substantially increase the risk of financial institutions being unable to service their IG debt.

On April 20th, 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell to negative $37.63 U.S. dollars per barrel. Admittedly, that was a short term aberration related to imbalances in the futures markets along with the Covid-19 panic. That said, oil’s price has tended to run in the $20-$40 range over much of the past decade, rarely getting above $50.
But oil has been climbing steadily now for several weeks. At this time, Bloomberg is showing Brent at $52 and NYMEX at $48.90. Unfortunately, the rally hasn’t helped refiner rich PRNEX much. The fund is still off 2% YTD and also negative over the past year. Curiously, Lipper places it in the top tier (5/5) in its category for “total return” - reflecting the deeper issues affecting these types of nat resource funds.
Disclosure - I’ve owned PRNEX from time to time. Sold it 1-2 months ago before it’s recent uptick. Should have held on.

@stillers +1 (though I might recalculate the three year std dev after adjusting for the March 2020 outlier)
"I agree with stillers that beyond the 3-year threashhold DODFX has outperformed DODIX. Yet, according to Lipper, at the 10-year point their annualized returns are nearly identical: DODIX: +4.67% / DODFX: +4.85%"
However, since the timeframe you are interested in is 3 years, we can compare performance data over the past three years. M* reports that the foreign large cap value category lost an annualized average of 0.70%, through Nov 30th. See its trailing total returns here (click on Monthly tab). DODFX did bit better, losing just 0.10% annually. Fidelity reports that the average prime MMF made 1.31% annually through Nov 30th (see its graph here).
Using the theory that one should take money from winners and place it on losers, we should take money out of cash and bet it on foreign large cap value funds? Surely that doesn't sound right; MMFs are safer investments, even now, than DODFX. One can stretch rules of thumb too far, especially over short time frames.
I do agree with Giroux that IG bonds do not look attractive. However, if one accepts the Fed statement that it will keep short term rates near zero for the next three years, then one might eek out a bit better return with IG bonds than with a "high" yield savings account. That's at least until the economy heats up, which could push longer term rates higher. IMHO this small potential improvement in return isn't worth the risk but it's a thought.
But DODIX isn't a vanilla IG bond fund. It can invest a significant amount in junk - it is a "core plus" fund. While IG bonds and the stock market have essentially no correlation (BND and VTSMX have a correlation coefficient of -0.04), DODIX and VTSMX have a correlation coefficient of 0.58 over the past three years.
Edit: Over the past decade, DODFX has outperformed its category by just north of 1% annually. Not great, but enough for M* to characterize its 10 year performance as "above average" (vs. its 3 year "average" performance). It earns a lower star rating than its performance suggests because its risk is rated "high" over all time frames, and star ratings are risk adjusted.

TMSRX has distributed its holiday fare to shareholders this week. It threw off a big dollop of short term capital gains and a generous slice of income. The secret sauce ain’t cheap if held in a taxable account. Nevertheless, there is much for which to be grateful.

I felt that TMSRX's $0.29 distribution on 12-15-2020 (approx 2.7% in total) would be ok for a taxable acct.

hank: I agree with @stillers that beyond the 3-year threshold DODFX has outperformed DODIX.

Hank, FWIW, I did NOT say that. I only presented SD data for the 3-yr period, not performance data.
On cash substitutes, good that you can take the volatility of DODIX as a cash sub. That said, there is a wasteland of 2020 M* forums participants who previously thought that several multi-sector bond funds with high concentrations of securitized holdings were good cash subs. They learned some very hard lessons in Feb-Mar this year.
It doesn't surprise me that DODFX and DODIX had similar TRs over 10 years. No offense, but DODFX is not a very good FLV fund, while DODIX is a worthy domestic IC+ bond fund.
Bottom Line: Don't overthink this. You're asking if a mediocre international stock fund is riskier than a domestic IC+ fund. Risk, in its simplest form, is uncertainty concerning loss. SD, while not exactly a measure of that, is a still a worthy measure of it and DODFX's SD is about 5x-6x greater than DODIX's for all prior time frames.
Granted, the macro outlook sure is pointing to outperformance of international stocks in the coming year(s). Now if I only had a nickel for the multiple times that's been the macro thinking over my 40 years of investing, I'd, well, probably have enough money for something.

TMSRX has distributed its holiday fare to shareholders this week. It threw off a big dollop of short term capital gains and a generous slice of income. The secret sauce ain’t cheap if held in a taxable account. Nevertheless, there is much for which to be grateful.

In its 30+ year history, dating back to 1989, I can find only 5 years when DODIX failed to generate a positive return. In only 1 of those years did its loss exceed 1% (it lost 2.9% in 1994). As a substitute for a money market fund (vs a clone or replica) I can under most circumstances accept that amount of volatility. Others may make their own decisions. Yahoo Performance data: DODIX
I agree with @stillers that beyond the 3-year threshold DODFX has outperformed DODIX. Yet, according to Lipper, at the 10-year point their annualized returns are nearly identical: DODIX: +4.67% / DODFX: +4.85%
And I agree that an international stock fund is inherently riskier than a predominately investment grade domestic bond fund. That’s a mathematically provable thesis as well as conventional wisdom. But an individual investor might view risk differently, asking “Which of these choices is more likely to generate gain and less likely to produce a loss over a relatively short near-term period (1-3 years) based on the macro outlook?” I’m suggesting that on the second note the “playing field” is much less uneven now than it has conventionally been. Others are concerned about fixed income as well. David Giroux in his last semi annual report called the investment grade bond market “extremely unattractive and in fact the most unattractive it has been in my whole career.” Capital Appreciation Semi-Annual Report 2020
Not seeking to answer my own question, but rather to explain why I felt it deserved to be asked. If the question didn’t have at least two sides to it, it wouldn’t be worth asking. And thanks @sillers for your input.

Your work above on CTFAX showed its possible for a F of F's to have 100% TO ratio.
BAMPX had numerous portfolio changes 3/31/2020 to 9/30/2020 (per annual and semi annual) as did CTFAX. Although the bond/equity allocation of BAMPX remained constant (+/- 5%), many of the the funds within the allocation totally changed. Comparing the two periods....43% of the allocations in the fund were sold and no longer have overlap. iShares Core S&P Total Mkt 16 to 10%, US Total Bond Index Master 13 to 0%, Blackrock Strategic Inc Opp 12 to 18% and 4 other funds went from 3-5% allocations to 0% each. Five new funds were purchased. The changes made were done so within just 6 months. TO ratios are annualized so we may have more changes within the remaining 6 months to get to the 98%. Therefore, I guess its possible for F of F's to reach 100% TO as these two examples indicate.
Just to clarify... my comment on Money markets was, as I indicated, intended to be separate not related to this matter. I do not want to infer anyone is profiting by trading. In fact, their strategy may be a good thing not a bad thing in my book. Their fund performance will tell the tale over time :) BAMPX looks like a good candidate for my watch list. Thank the author for the heads up.

@lynnbolin2021

@MJPete, I have different views set up. Do you have a particular fund family that you are restricted to?

Hello again, and thank you. I apologize for rambling I'm new to the sight looking to increase my knowledge and technique. I run a loose bucket strategy that I just need to tune up knowing I don't have a lot of down market protection.
Not as much a fund that I'm restricted to but whatever Pershing has set up, which is inconsistent and has wide variations of fund classes. Blackrock, Fidelity, Vanguard, Franklin incur fees which are manageable with large enough transactions.
I just spent about two hours scrubbing for class shares of alternates to your list and T.Rowe Price Global Stock is available, though I wish Capital Appreciation was, (but has been closed for some time now. I'm hoping the new management house they just announced will open it (and a few others up in the future)
The others I am interested in are share classes with $1m-5m min. exchanges, or just as ETF, so not available. I appreciate your offer run a different view.

CTFAX makes sizeable changes in general, not only relative to the S&P 500. Between its annual report p. 68 (period ending Dec 31, 2019) and its semiannual report p. 43 (period ending June 30, 2020), it decreased its allocation of fixed income funds from 71.1% to 44.2%. It sold off all of its inflation protected securities fund (7.9% of the portfolio), all of its Total Return Bond Fund (about 5% of the portfolio), and decreased its other bond funds by around 5-10% (eyeballing). At the same time it inceased its equity fund holdings from 19.7% to 44.7%, and increased its equity ETF holdings from 5.0% to 7.9%.
That wasn't just around the S&P 500. It increased its Dividend Income Fund allocation from 2.0% to 4.9%, its Acorn Int'l Fund from 2% to 4.9%, its Acorn Fund from 2% to 5%. You detect a pattern here - outside of large cap funds, it raised its equity fund allocations by 2.5x. But it raised its large cap funds, those closest to the S&P 500, by "only" 2.1x, from 11.8% to 24.9%. And it changed Mid cap fund altogether, swapping out its 2.0% of Acorn Fund for 5.0% of Select Midcap Value.
That was just in six months. It's not hard to see how this fund could have a 100% turnover just counting the churn of underlying funds.
The funds mentioned, CTFAX, Blackrock X%/Y% funds invest strictly in house funds (Columbia and Blackrock/iShares respectively), so it's hard to see how the fund companies profit from trading. Certainly one could see them profiting by keeping a higher allocation to cash, just as Schwab makes its money in its managed portfolios by keeping a high cash allocation. But at least for CTFAX, its MMF allocation is under 1%.

CTFAX Statement of Additional Information p.102 says under normal conditions the portfolio turnover rate is expected to be below 150%. The past 4 year CTFAX avg has been in the 100% range like BAMPX 98%. CTFAX makes portfolio changes relative to changes in the S&P500. I do not know if small daily adjustments to portfolio allocations within a F of F's would amount to 98% annualized TO rate... but maybe so. I do not know the answer to BAMPX. All of the Blackrock Target Funds 80/20, 60/40, 40/60 and 20/80 have similar TO ratio numbers around 100% in 2020. Separately... I also remember reading somewhere that in some conditions money market instruments purchases may include a profit to the dealer resulting in a TO ratio skew.